


All Goes Onward and Outward

by whichclothes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-24
Updated: 2010-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future, Spike is on trial for his crimes against humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/plot_wout_porn/profile)[**plot_wout_porn**](http://community.livejournal.com/plot_wout_porn/) . This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (1/7)**_  
**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 1\. I Have Only What I Remember   
**Fandom:** BtVS/AtS   
**Pairing (if any):** Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/plot_wout_porn/profile)[**plot_wout_porn**](http://community.livejournal.com/plot_wout_porn/) . This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners!   
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
  
All goes onward and outward...and nothing collapses,  
And to die is different from what any one supposes, and luckier  
\--Walt Whitman, _A child said, What is the grass?  
_

**  
Chapter One**

**I Have Only What I Remember**

 

I have only what I remember.

\---W.S. Merwin, _A Likeness_

 

 

Trailing warm hands slowly over his skin, his lovers called him flawless, and he knew it was a lie.

Nearly thirty years of living had marked him: a small burn on his left forearm from when his nurse let him wander too close to the fire, a whitish spot on one knee after he ignored his mum’s warnings not to pick at a scab, a straight line on a thigh from a careless moment with a penknife.

Even death had left its scars: two tiny points on his neck, a V on one brow from a Slayer long gone, two parallel tracks across his chest from the dragon that killed his grandsire.

The inner flaws were even worse. Thousands of screams, each one as unique in its terror as a fingerprint. The faces of those he had loved, dead or dusted. Knowledge of the many times he could have been faster or stronger or smarter.

He didn’t mind the scars, though. They were all he had; them, and his memories. And memories are fragile, inconstant things, prone to fading and revision even in human lifespans.

So much more so, after three centuries.

He shifted slightly on the cold, smooth floor, pulling his legs closer against his chest. Today—or was it tonight? No way to tell—he would think of Dru. He touched his sensitive fingertips against the minute bumps on his neck and remembered her, dark and lovely, naming the stars.

 

The soldiers came again, and they were like soldiers always were, no matter the time or place. Young and brash and hiding their fear under a thick layer of bravado and aggression. They tossed him some loose, colorless trousers and watched as he wearily pulled them on. He wasn’t permitted clothing in the cell; they didn’t bother to tell him why. The trousers were a little long on him and the cuffs dragged slightly on the floor.

He stood compliantly as they locked a chain around his waist and then, slightly roughly, cuffed his wrists to it. He didn’t move as they attached a second set of irons around his ankles. And when they pushed him down the hallway he shuffled wordlessly, his head bowed, his face a blank.

They kept the chains on him, even as they locked him in a cage like an animal. The courtroom had buzzed noisily as he was ushered in, but now there was an expectant hush, and a hundred pairs of eyes and the lenses of the several hovering cameras stared at him blankly. Perhaps they expected him to growl and roar, to shift to his other face and drip blood from his fangs. Likely they hoped he would. He didn’t. Mostly, he looked at his own feet, which were filthy, and wished he were allowed to bathe. His head itched, but he couldn’t reach up his hands to scratch it.

A door opened and a thin man in uniform came through. “All rise for the Honorable Judge Delgadillo!” he called, and everybody did. The judge entered in his black robe, his salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, his face solemn. He was slightly stout and looked to be in his mid-50’s. In an era in which only poor people had to show their age, this man had chosen to appear wise and authoritarian.

The judge sat, and so did the audience. He nodded at the clerk, a dark-skinned woman in a suit, who read from an electronic assistant. Her voice was deep and clear, like a trained singer’s. “Criminal action 4-63-008, People of the State of California versus William Pratt, vampire.” The judge nodded again and the clerk sat as well.

Judge Delgadillo pressed at the screen before him. “All right,” he said. “Is counsel for the state present?”

“Yes, sir,” said a thin, pretty blonde. “I’m Assistant State Attorney Paula Paquette.”

“And counsel for the defense?”

“Frederick Manion here,” replied a mousy-looking man with a harried look on his face. Spike was startled. He hadn’t realized he’d been given an attorney. Certainly hadn’t spoken with the bloke.

The jury was sworn in, a dozen men and women who stared at him with curiosity and loathing. At least they looked at him, though. Neither the judge nor the lawyers had even glanced his way.

Everyone waited impatiently while the lawyers approached the bench and, out of the hearing of the jury, took care of some preliminary matters. A vampire could hear them, though, and he did, but he paid little attention, instead leaning against the bars of the cage and looking out of the corner of his eye at a young man in the front row. The man reminded him of someone, and he was trying to put his finger on whom it was when the prosecutor began to address the jury.

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen. That looks like a person in there, a small, not very threatening man.” She waved her arm theatrically at him. “That is an illusion. What you see before you is an abomination, a ruthless, savage killer. That demon has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

She paced a bit closer to the jury box, dropping her voice. She was good, he thought. Very dramatic. “If we were to present all the evidence against this monster, we would all die of old age before this trial ever ended. So we will focus on only a few cases, ladies and gentlemen. But I assure you that the evidence we will present to you will be more than sufficient to demonstrate this creature’s depravity, the enormity of its crimes against humanity.”

He bristled a bit at the pronoun she chose. Almost all of what she had said had been accurate, but he wasn’t a thing. He didn’t bother arguing, though. Wouldn’t have done any good, and besides, his keepers had warned him that if he spoke out of turn he’d be gagged again, as he had been during his arraignment.

“The first case we will present to you today is the brutal killing of this girl.” An image appeared on screens over the judge’s head and on the wall opposite the jury. It was two dimensional; three dimensional imaging wasn’t yet in wide use when this photo was taken. It appeared to be a school photo, like the type that appeared in yearbooks. A headshot in front of a blank background. The girl was fresh-faced and pretty, her brown hair carefully curled in a style popular in the late 1970’s, her grin revealing shining braces on her teeth. He didn’t recognize her.

“This is Jennifer Marie Page. On the evening of May 2, 1979, she left her house in Sacramento to walk to her friend Stephanie’s house, only three blocks away. The girls planned to work on a history project together. Jennifer never arrived at Stephanie’s house. Instead, she was found the next morning. This is what she looked like when she was found.”

A new photo appeared next to the first one, and everyone gasped. The girl in this picture was sprawled in an alley, bits of rubbish under and around her. She was on her back and her eyes were staring sightlessly upward. Her skin was almost the same bluish-grey as her jeans. Her t-shirt had been pushed up, and there were several small holes visible in her midriff. Her neck was a raw and macerated mess.

It was a sloppy job. Looked like something a desperate fledge would do. But it wasn’t impossible that he had been responsible. Perhaps he had been especially hungry that night, or in the mood to play with his food. He couldn’t recall. It was so long ago.

“Jennifer was fifteen years old. She had a B-plus average, she played the flute in the school band, and she wanted to be a veterinarian. She had a younger brother.” All of this was accompanied by more snapshots of the girl in a red and white uniform, her instrument clutched in her hand; on a lawn, playing with a shaggy black dog; at an amusement park, holding the hand of a small boy.

Then a series of gruesome photos flashed slowly across the screen. Autopsy pictures. “The coroner concluded that Jennifer was stabbed several times with a barbeque fork, and that her throat was ripped out by some kind of animal. Ladies and gentlemen, we all know what _that_ means.”

The jurors nodded.

“On May 2, 1979, several credible sources placed the defendant in Sacramento. Its lair was less than half a mile from Jennifer’s house.”

He remembered staying briefly in Sacramento then, en route to San Francisco, where he and Dru planned to hop a freighter bound for China. Their “lair” had actually been quite a nice house, with a thick shag carpet that Dru had liked to roll about in. Dru had managed to get an invite into the place, allowing the bloke who lived there to pick her up at a bar, and then agreeing to go home with him. Spike had watched from the shadows, seething, as the man had pawed her while they walked up the drive. And then Dru had followed the man inside, and had drained him almost at once. The moment his heart beat its last, Spike was able to join her inside, reveling in the way the stolen blood pinked up his Princess’s cheeks.

He realized Paquette had been speaking for some time, showing the jury excerpts from Watchers’ Diaries that placed him near the scene of the crime. Then she paused, and, for the first time, actually looked at him.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Look at it. It shows no remorse for these hideous acts.”

That was true, as well. How could he have remorse for an act a century and a half past, an act he didn’t recollect at all now? Not that he didn’t regret his atrocities in a general sense, because he did. They still haunted his dreams. But he didn’t wear that regret on his face like a branding mark, and brooding had never been his style.

The jurors scowled at him and he merely looked blandly back at them.

There was more after that. Some of the faces were familiar, and some were not. Paquette showed only attractive victims, not the homeless people and drifters and whores who’d made up most of Spike’s diet. More juror sympathy that way, plus, after all these years it would have been difficult to find photos of the nameless forgotten who’d haunted the back streets and seedy motels where he once hunted.

After a while he grew tired and he folded gracefully onto the floor, his legs bent awkwardly beneath him. The judge frowned and the prosecutor made some comment about the fiend lounging about, but he ignored them and picked at the fraying threads of his trousers.

It was nearly noon when the judge adjourned for lunch. Everyone filed out of the courtroom except two of the soldiers. They sat near him, chatting quietly to each other, their hands hovering near the butts of their weapons every time he shifted slightly.

His stomach clenched angrily at him. They’d been underfeeding him and he didn’t know when he’d last eaten.

“Oi,” he called. “You planning to starve me? Thought you’d at least wait till the show’s over to do away with me.” His voice was raspy from disuse, and the soldiers looked shocked, as if they’d forgotten he could speak at all.

One of the soldiers, a short woman, made as if to draw her weapon, but the other put his hand out and stopped her. When he looked at Spike, his homely face was tinged with sympathy. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re not allowed to feed you now. Maybe after court adjourns this afternoon.”

“You shouldn’t talk to it!” the woman spat.

But her companion only shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to be civil,” he said.

Spike smiled at the boy. “Thanks, mate.” He tipped his head back against the bars, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to slip into a light doze.

He woke when people began filing back into the room. The bailiff came over and demanded that he stand, and then the whole audience rose as well as Judge Delgadillo re-entered.

The afternoon was much like the morning, and the jurors seemed to wilt a bit under the monotony of death and mayhem. Not for the first time, Spike wondered why they bothered with the whole charade. It made good theater, perhaps, or perhaps the prosecutor was looking for publicity. It was better than sitting in his empty cell, at least, so he rather welcomed it.

He gazed surreptitiously at the humans, and suddenly he realized whom the one bloke reminded him of. Harris. Xander Harris. One of the Scoobies. Spike smiled to himself as he remembered the boy with the loud, baggy clothing and the runaway mouth. This man had the same floppy brown hair, the same slightly downturned lips. Spike remembered the time he and Harris had stolen a magic jacket from a football player, and he nearly laughed out loud.

He’d seen Harris one last time after Sunnydale. At Buffy’s funeral. Harris had been graying at the temples by then. He’d had a pretty woman at his side—a Slayer, Spike had sensed—and a couple of kiddies who looked just like him. Harris had looked shocked to see him, and then nodded stiffly. When the service was over, just before Spike slipped away, Harris had stalked up to him. A redhead was at his side. The witch, all grown up, the corners of her eyes beginning to wrinkle.

“Why are you here, Spike?” Harris demanded.

“Just paying my respects. I’ll go.”

He started to turn away, but Willow placed a hand on his forearm. “It’s okay. You can stay if you want.”

“No. I just…. I’ll go.”

She shifted her hand to his and squeezed. “Are you all right, Spike? Are you doing okay?”

“’M fine.” He let her kindness sink into him like sunshine.

“How did you….?” She waved her hand around vaguely.

“Sometimes I do some work for a Watcher in Barcelona. Decent sort. He rang and told me.”

She nodded. “I’m glad you could come, Spike.”

He inclined his head toward a blonde teenager with an eerily familiar look to her. The girl was teary-eyed, but her jaw was clenched determinedly. She was holding the hand of a dark-haired man in his late forties. “Hers?”

Willow smiled. “That’s Joy. She’ll be sixteen next month.”

“Slayer?”

“No.”

“Good.”

All three of them looked at Joy for a minute, remembering.

“Where’s the bit?” he’d finally asked.

“Oh, Dawnie’s in Peru, at a dig. She couldn’t get a flight out in time. Xan and I are going to go down there in a couple days, spend some time together. Um….” She paused and bit her lip. “Want to join us?”

To his surprise, Harris didn’t protest. His single eye was glittery with unshed tears.

“Nah. I have…a thing I have to do. But ta, love.”

They’d exchanged a few more words then, and then Willow had hugged him. He’d clutched tightly at her for a brief moment, enjoying the soft, warm feel of her, the scent of herbs and shampoo and cinnamon toast. Then Harris had stuck out his hand, and they shook, and Harris even grinned a bit at him.

And then Spike left.

He heard their news now and then over the years. He’d been in Mumbai when Xander died of a heart attack, his grandchildren at his side. He was in Lodz when breast cancer felled Willow. And he was back in LA when Dawn died in a car crash. He’d sobbed for hours over that, even though he hadn’t seen her in decades, even though his eyes had been dry since the battle at Wolfram and Hart.

Now, as Paquette droned on, he wondered if this young man might be a descendant of Harris’s.

At last, the judge slammed his gavel and adjourned for the day. Nobody looked at him as they left the courtroom, not even his own attorney. The jurors stretched and yawned and went home, no doubt to ignore the judge’s orders not to discuss the case. He expected quite a few family dinners would be enlivened tonight with tales of his exploits.

When the room had cleared, several soldiers came in. The woman who’d been with him all day unlocked the cage, and Spike stood and stretched a bit himself, hoping they planned to unlock the cuffs soon. As he was handed off to this new group of keepers, the one bloke said, “Hey. Can you guys make sure he gets fed? He hasn’t eaten all day.”

“It doesn’t eat, dope,” one of the new ones replied. “It drinks.”

“Whatever.”

Spike shot the man a thankful look as he was led away.

The soldiers didn’t talk as they walked down the long hallways, and waited in the lift, and then walked some more. When they came to his cell, they removed the cuffs and shackles and belly chain, then ordered him to take off his trousers. He did, and one of them snatched the clothing out of his hand. Another pushed some buttons on an electronic device, and Spike heard the small _whoosh_ as the barrier to the cell disappeared. He was pushed roughly inside. Another _whoosh_ and the barrier was replaced.

The soldiers went away.

Spike paced for a while because he felt slightly warmer that way, and because it felt good to have a few feet of freedom to move. The cell was three meters square, and he touched the smooth metal walls as he completed each circuit.

He wanted to scream and kick and snarl. He’d done plenty of all of those things when he was first brought here. But it did no good. Even when he’d split his skin and broken his bones pounding against the solidity that held him, there had been no satisfaction, no sense of relief. Just pain.

Finally, a lone soldier appeared. He pressed a few buttons, and the thin panel beside the barrier clicked open. The soldier fed a packet through the slot, and Spike was there to catch it before it hit the ground. He groaned in relief, vamped out, and ripped into the bag. The soldier watched through narrowed eyes as Spike guzzled the blood—cold and pig, but it was food, at least. When every drop was drained, Spike dutifully poked the empty container back through. The soldier took it, shut the slot, and marched away.

Spike cursed under his breath at himself as he walked to the far corner of the cell. He wished he could refuse the shite they fed him. He hated being a slave to his hunger in a way no human could ever understand. All these many years hadn’t much dulled the ache. His bloody soul didn’t stop the craving, and he wondered sometimes if he became ravenous enough, and the opportunity to sink his fangs into a living human arose, whether he would be able to withstand the terrible urge.

He sank to his side on the floor, curling tightly into himself. He closed his eyes. There was nothing to look at here, that he knew well. Three plain metal walls, and an invisible shield that shocked him to unconsciousness if he touched it. On the other side of it, a narrow corridor and another blank, shiny wall. Beneath him, a slick floor, as devoid as the walls of markings. And, three meters above, a plain ceiling, inset with a light of some kind that burned day and night.

Tenderly, he fingered the scar on his eyebrow. Tonight he would think about Slayers.

 

The next day was a close repeat of the first. As was the next. All told, the prosecutor droned on for the better part of two weeks, leaving the jurors weary and drawn. His own lawyer never said a word, either to Spike or to the judge. He just sat there, typing into his electronic assistant, peering at the photos with beady eyes.

One day, Paquette mentioned Drusilla, and the judge stopped her. “Wait a minute, counsel. This Drusilla you mentioned. Who was that?”

“Drusilla Bonham, Your Honor. A vampire. The one that made the defendant. Born, er….” She looked at her e.a. “Born 1840. Died 1860. They traveled together for years, inflicting horror on untold thousands, before it finally left the defendant in, umm, 2001.” Spike flinched. It was still painful. “Drusilla was with the defendant as it perpetrated most of these crimes, Your Honor.”

“Then why isn’t this Drusilla being prosecuted as a codefendant?”

If Spike could have lifted his hands to his ears, he would have, trying to block out the answer he knew was coming. “Drusilla was destroyed, sir, in 2048, by a Slayer in Cairo.”

“Very well. Continue, please, counsel.”

She’d been the last to go and, although he hadn’t seen her in nearly 50 years by then—had purposely avoided her, in fact—it had still felt like being seared by fire. A feeling he knew personally, and remembered well.

At last, Paquette turned off the projector for the final time. She put on a serious face, glared at Spike in his sodding cage, and then faced the judge. “Your Honor, the state rests.”

Judge Delgadillo allowed the jury to leave, informing them that they would begin again Monday morning.

The other attorney stood then, and, for the first time, spoke. “Your Honor, the defense moves to dismiss all charges.”

“On what basis, counsel?”

“Insufficient evidence, Your Honor.”

The spectators actually laughed at this, and even Manion seemed to have a smile quirking the corner of his lips. But the judge simply shook his head. “Motion denied. Court adjourned.”

The soldiers led him silently to his cell, as always. But this time, when they got there, they didn’t remove his chains. Instead, they tore the trousers from his body and then kicked and stomped viciously at the lower half of his body. When he vamped out and tried to fight back, he was hit with several electric jolts that sent paralyzing pain through him, not so different from what the chip used to do. They rolled him on his back and brought their heavy boots down on his shins and his thighs and his groin, until his throat was sore from yelling and he was retching in pain. Then, finally, they unfettered him and dragged him into the cell, and went away.

He wrapped himself in a miserable ball, waiting and waiting for healing blood.

When a soldier finally did arrive with a packet of red fluid, he had to drag himself across the floor, moaning quietly, to retrieve his meal. He drank it all, the soldier’s eyes aimed flatly at him.

Slowly, his battered flesh recovered. He’d still be bruised come Monday, he expected, but the marks would be covered by his trousers. Which was likely why the soldiers had kept their attack below the waist to begin with.

He crawled back to his corner, wishing that his body would warm the metal around him. Tonight he stroked the two gouges on his chest and he thought of Angel.

 

The defense’s case was shorter.

Manion had no photos to show the jury, but he did have a witness, an expert of some kind who spoke of demons and free will and irresistible impulses.

Spike could see the jury wasn’t buying it, and neither was he. Even without the soul, he could have withstood the urge to hunt and kill people. He could have preyed on animals instead, or even could have dined more carefully, taking just enough precious fluid from humans to keep them alive, and him undead. But he hadn’t. He’d wanted to murder and he’d enjoyed it. True, he would not have been nearly as deadly without the influence of Angelus, but still, he would have killed.

Spike shifted uncomfortably on the floor, wincing at the pressure on the contusions on his arse. He’d nearly sell his soul for some soft cushions.

The second day was more interesting. Now Manion spoke of redemption. It made Spike uncomfortable at first, too much of a reminder of his grandsire. But the lawyer didn’t notice or didn’t care. He still hadn’t actually spoken to Spike.

Manion presented Watcher’s diaries as evidence of the first time Spike had allied himself with Buffy, when he’d double-crossed Angelus and helped stop Acathla. Looking up at the slightly crabbed handwriting on the screen, Spike realized with a start that it must have been Giles’s.

He’d encountered Rupert several times over the years, in various places. One of those encounters took place in Chicago two or three years after Angel dusted and, much to their mutual surprise, ended in a rather spectacular shag in room 1036 of the Ritz-Carlton. They’d tumbled into bed together a few times after that as well, always after many ounces of Scotch, but never with any real regrets. Spike had sincerely mourned when a demon finally got the better of Ripper, somewhere not so far from his home in Bath.

Spike’s lawyer went on to discuss how Spike had fought at the Scoobies’ side. The prosecutor objected.

“Your Honor, this is immaterial. The defendant worked with the Slayer because it had no choice, because it was under the influence of a control chip that prohibited it from harming humans.”

He wanted to argue with the twat. Of course he had a choice. Yeah, at first he’d been pathetic and desperate, but once he’d adjusted, he could have managed without them. Of course, by then he was stuck on Buffy, but that was another issue altogether.

The judge overruled the motion.

The defense attorney then talked about how Spike had—quite willingly—fought for a soul. _That _brought a gasp from both the jurors and the audience, and for the first time they looked at him with something other than disgust and hatred. Spike sat up a bit straighter. The decision to go to Africa had been hasty and foolhardy, fueled by shame and love and anger in equal measures. Still, he’d battled hard, and won his prize, and weathered the storm of insanity that had followed. And he hadn’t become a brooding hulk, feeding off of rats.

Manion finally had some visual aids when he spoke of the final year of Sunnydale. There was more from Rupert’s diaries. Of how Spike had willingly allowed himself to be chained in Buffy’s basement to avoid being co-opted by The First. When that cramped squiggle revealed that the Watcher had plotted to eliminate Spike, and that Spike had nonetheless remained in Sunnydale, a few people even showed flashes of sympathy and perhaps even respect.

And then Manion brought up some photos of Sunnydale, and then of the crater that used to be Sunnydale, and told the jury that Spike had worn the necklace of a champion and allowed himself to burn to save the world. Spike recalled the agony again, but it had been a good pain in a way, pure and cleansing.

Spike tried not to listen when his attorney spoke of Wolfram and Hart. He tried not to picture the deaths of his comrades—of Charlie-boy, bleeding to death from a belly wound. Of Blue, screaming ancient obscenities as she was overcome by legions of demons. And especially not of Angel, still swinging away even as the dragon tore into him, even as Spike, badly hurt himself, tried to raise his own weapon in aid, even as the beast ripped off the vampire’s head and he exploded in a shower of dust. Spike could swear that even now, some of that dust coated his own lungs.

The courtroom was hushed now, and Manion turned out to be a captivating storyteller. Even after the devastating battle, he told the jury, Spike hadn’t given up. He’d contacted the Watchers Council and gathered allies, and, within a few years, was able to spearhead the campaign that dealt Wolfram and Hart a blow that still had them reeling. He didn’t say, because he didn’t know, that Spike had not done this willingly, but rather to keep his own personal demons at bay. As long as the law firm went unchecked, every dream was plagued with images of Fred and Angel and the others suffering, dying for nothing. He continued the fight mostly to shut those ghosts up. It hadn’t worked—the ghosts were still there—but at least they harangued him more gently.

For an entire additional day, Manion continued, relaying the highlights of Spike’s adventures over the last 150 years. The truth was, he had done much good. Was doing good, even, the night he was captured. He’d returned to California after a long absence, lured by reports of a nasty something that was creeping out of sewers and into people’s houses, gobbling their children, leaving only scraps of bones and hair behind. And he’d found the something, or rather, somethings, a nest of Lkarthont, and he’d wiped them out. But he’d been hurt in the process, his leg badly shattered. As he crawled out of the sewer, battered and filthy, he’d hoped to make it to shelter before dawn. He had a small flat nearby, actually.

Police officers had spied him, police officers who, like all of them today, had been briefed on the existence of monsters and demons. They’d recognized him for what he was, and zapped him with the bloody shock-sticks until they had him trussed like a turkey. They took him into custody, locked him in a special, vamp-proof cell, and asked him his name. When they looked it up on their e.a.s they’d whistled and whooped, convinced they’d nabbed a good bit of evil. Hadn’t listened to his protestations. Hadn’t even allowed him to contact the sodding Watchers Council, which might possibly have been willing to intercede on his behalf.

Instead, they’d chained him up again and brought him here, and taken his freedom and his clothes and his dignity, and then dragged him before the crowds and cameras like a hunting trophy, like a bleeding circus freak.

He was tired. So very tired.

 

Finally, the defense rested.

A day-long volley of motions and countermotions followed, with more evidence here and there, but Spike paid it no mind. He rested against the bars and watched the dust motes sparkle in the air, and he thought of nothing at all.

There were closing arguments.

Manion quietly, passionately, told the jury that, while Spike had indeed committed many wrongs, those wrongs were the result of his unwilling possession. That he couldn’t be blamed for them any more than you could blame a lion for killing an antelope. Moreover, the lawyer argued, those crimes were far in Spike’s past. For the past century and a half he had saved many more lives than he’d ever taken, had saved the world, at the expense of his own safety and even his own existence.

“This is no monster,” Manion concluded. “This is a man. A man victimized himself, forced to behave like a beast, and then a man who chose the right path. A man who has atoned for his wrongs and who deserves, if not our admiration and gratitude, at least our respect and forgiveness.” And for the first and only time, he met Spike’s eyes and he smiled warmly.

Paquette stalked in front of the jury box. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “this creature may have done some good deeds. But not one of those good deeds brought a single victim back to life. It destroyed mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, wives and husbands, sisters and brothers. None of us will ever know the potential of those human lives it ended. Maybe one of these people would have created the vaccine that would have stopped the flu epidemic of ’75. Maybe one of them would have brokered a peace between Brazil and Argentina, avoiding the war that cost so many souls. Maybe one of them would have created masterpieces of art to rival daVinci’s, or literature to surpass Shakespeare.

“We’ll never know.

“And ladies and gentlemen, the defendant may have given up its violent ways, may even have felt bad for some of the inestimable harm it has caused. But if I rob a bank, will I get off the hook if I regret it the next day?

“And one more thing to keep in mind as you deliberate. The defendant has chosen to stop committing atrocities. Chosen of its own free will, the defense would have you believe. Fine. How do we know it won’t choose someday to start again?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, look long and hard at this creature, this demon in a human skin. Remember Jennifer Page, and the hundreds and hundreds of others, calling out from beyond the grave for justice. Only you have it in your power to ensure that justice is served.”

Judge Delgadillo had instructions for the jury then, and the bailiff escorted them away to deliberate. Court was adjourned. The judge left, and then the lawyers, without a backward glance at Spike. The soldiers came and took him back to his cell, took away the trousers, and left him there to wait.

There was no way to measure time in the cell. Spike wished for a cigarette. They’d been banned sixty years ago, but on the day he was captured, he was still carrying a battered silver lighter in his coat pocket. He wished for a bottle of JD. Several bottles, in fact. He wished for a soft, warm blanket to wrap around his chilled shoulders, to spread underneath him on the frigid floor. He wished for a hand to hold, a word of support, a small smile on the lips of someone who cared. He wished—

Oh, bloody hell.

What did it matter what he wished?

 

He was fed several times while he waited for the verdict. He wondered if it was a good sign that it was taking so long. He tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep nonstop, or to distract himself humming old songs, or to sit like a Buddhist monk and think of nothing.

When a clutch of soldiers appeared, their faces flushed and eager, he leapt to his feet. He pulled the trousers on eagerly, and nearly shoved himself into the usual shackles. He cursed the long corridors and the ankle chain that kept his steps short and slow.

At last they were in the courtroom again, and everybody was assembled save the jury. The perhaps-Harris-spawn was there, and the soldier who’d been almost courteous to him, and the prosecutor and the defense attorney. The judge banged his gavel, and a moment later, the bailiff escorted the jurors in. They appeared tired. Most of them barely glanced at Spike, and his dead heart clenched. It’s not that he feared the final death—not really—but he had hoped to go out in a blaze of glory (again!), perhaps with someone he loved at his side.

Judge Delgadillo turned slightly to address the jury. “Madame Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”

A woman stood. She was short and her front teeth were prominent. Looked like she might teach Sunday School. Her voice quavered a bit as she said, “Yes, Your Honor.”

She handed a folded paper to the bailiff, who took it to the judge. The judge read it, poker-faced.

“In the matter of The People of the State of California versus William Pratt, vampire, number 4-63-008, the jury finds the defendant guilty on all counts.”

There was a muted roar in the courtroom. Spike was…completely unsurprised.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this your true verdict?”

Twelve human voices said yes, it was.

Manion turned and looked at Spike, sorrow and regret clouding his face.

“Under the authority of Penal Code section 392.05, we will now proceed directly to sentencing, unless the defense objects.”

Manion raised an eyebrow at Spike, who shook his head. No use delaying the inevitable.

Manion turned to the judge. “No objection, Your Honor.”

Judge Delgadillo spent a few minutes frowning and fiddling with his e.a. Then he looked up. “The law grants me few options in this case. I could sentence the defendant to final death, and order that it be staked immediately.”

Spike caught the judge’s use of pronoun, and steeled himself. He was suddenly sure that something much worse than dusting awaited him.

“In view of the defendant’s extremely long and atrocious history, and the extreme heinousness of its offenses, however, final death is too kind a fate. While this court may be merciful, it is not foolish.”

Spike couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. What more could they do to him now? “I never asked for your mercy,” he said, his voice loud and steady. The audience collectively gasped. “Don’t want it. Never gave it to the people I killed, did I?”

He expected the bailiff or the soldiers to move forward, to try to silence him, but nobody did.

“I did all the things this bint said, and worse. I’ve seen horrors none of you can imagine. I’ve seen hell. But I’ve also done good, and nothing you said here can discount that. I’ve lost…everything.” Unconsciously, he fingered the scars on his chest. “Everything I ever had, gone and dust. I’m not a thing. I feel. I love, and I cry, and I ache deep inside. I was a man once. I reckon I’m a man still.”

There was dead silence in the courtroom. The judge regarded him for a long time, and then, slowly, nodded.

“All right,” Judge Delgadillo said. “It doesn’t change my decision, but all right. I will not sentence the defendant to final death, because I think that is less than he deserves.”

At the pronoun change, Spike stood a little straighter. At least he would face this as a person.

“Under the authority vested in me by Penal Code section 392.08, the defendant is sentenced to permanent solitary confinement. He will spend the remainder of his existence alone, pondering what he has done.”

The judge banged his gavel.

Spike’s knees felt weak and his stomach queasy. But he kept his head up and his eyes dry as the soldiers came and led him away.

 

[Chapter Two](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/47132.html)


	2. All Goes Onward and Outward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (2/7)**_  
**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 2\. Like Tears of Rain   
**Pairing: **Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners! Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=All+Goes+Onward+and+Outward&filter=all).  
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
  
****

Chapter Two

**Like Tears of Rain**

 
    
    
    And there are corpses,
    
    
    feet made of cold and sticky clay,
    
    
    death is inside the bones,
    
    
    like a barking where there are no dogs,
    
    
    coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
    
    
    growing in the damp air like tears of rain. 

\--Pablo Neruda, _Nothing but death_

 

If he could, he’d lie still on the ground, counting the stars, reciting love poems to the moon.

It was so long since he’d seen the sky.

After the trial, they’d kept him in the holding cell a few days. Then the soldiers had come, and they’d bound him tighter than ever, and jammed a thick muzzle in his mouth, and then led him away, still naked. The other prisoners had watched curiously as he went by. Most were human.

This time the lift took them to an underground car park. A soldier opened the back of a square, white vehicle, and they shoved him inside. The compartment was small—he had to sit in a huddle—and heavily reinforced. They locked his wrists and ankles to metal rings set into the floor. Then they slammed the door shut and the car hummed away.

They travelled a long time.

At last they stopped and the back opened again. Damned if they weren’t in another car park. They unhooked him and took him up another lift, and down long, ugly corridors.

They came to a door and opened it. It was a large room, the greenish walls scuffed and filthy. Uniformed guards were there, hands on their weapons, glaring at him belligerently.

He was grateful when they unbuckled the muzzle. But then they did a body cavity search, poking fat, clumsy fingers deep into his mouth and then into his arse. A huge man, tall and thick, shaved his head. Nobody spoke to him at all.

One of the guards seized his shoulder and propelled him back into the hallway. A half dozen guards accompanied him. They walked slowly, passing through several heavy, locked gates. He didn’t see any other prisoners. Just featureless doors, with numbers painted on them in black.

They stopped in front of one of the doors. One guard opened it while the others quickly removed all the chains from his body. They pushed him inside and the door clanged shut behind him.

 

This cell was roughly the same size as the holding cell. The room was as bare as he was. This cell, too, had walls and floor of smooth metal. Instead of an invisible barrier, though, there was a fourth wall, in which he could just barely make out the seams of the door. He couldn’t see whomever passed by, nor could he hear anything but the echoing sounds he himself made. Soundproofed, he expected. The room had sent him into claustrophobic screaming fits for days after he was first incarcerated.

In some small ways, though, this was a bit better than the holding cell. For one thing, the overhead light dimmed for several hours at a time. It was never completely dark in the room, but the muted glow was easier on his sensitive eyes and made it easier for him to sleep.

They fed him enough, as well. Still cold animal blood, but his belly never grew angry. The blood came in packets that were dropped through a small slot. He drank his meals slowly, dragging each container out as long as he could. It gave him something to do. Shortly after each bag was drained, the packet itself would _poof_ away to nothing but fine dust, almost as if it were a vampire, too.

The cell had a shower of sorts. Periodically, a spigot in one corner of the ceiling would open and water would come rushing out. At the same time, a small drain would open in the floor. The water was always cold, and he’d be chilled and shivering for hours after, but still he welcomed the chance to get relatively clean.

The best thing, though, was the one small mercy they permitted him. Books. Periodically the slot would open and someone would say, “Give me the book.” It was the only time he heard another voice. He’d pick up the current book and carefully feed it through the narrow opening, and then a new book would come tumbling through. It felt like Christmas had, when he was a boy. The books were an odd and eclectic bunch. It might be Shakespeare now and a romance novel next. He didn’t care. They were words, and his only form of escape.

He’d read each book bit by bit the first time, savoring each sentence like fine wine, dutifully putting the book down every few pages. Making it last. The second reading was faster, and the third faster yet. By the time the next book arrived, he’d have huge chunks of the current one memorized, and the pages would be falling from the spine.

He wondered where they found the books. Publishing hadn’t been done on paper for decades; everybody read on their e.a.s instead. He liked the feel of the smooth sheets under his fingers, the scents of dust and mold and food and human that clung to the covers.

He’d have gone mad without the books. Perhaps he had anyway. Perhaps he was as barmy as Dru and he just didn’t know it. If so, though, he rather thought he’d hallucinate something more interesting than an empty room.

He talked to himself sometimes, or sang, just to hear a voice. His voice echoed forlornly off the walls, though, the reverberations tinny and hollow.

When the light went down he’d run his hands over himself, touching his scars, but also the rest of his body. Remembering how this lover had stroked him just here, how that lover had bit and nibbled him there. He’d wank sometimes, too, leisurely, seeing blonde hair and brown behind his closed lids. There was probably a camera in the ceiling somewhere, and the guards likely watched, but at least the faint light gave him an illusion of privacy.

Sometimes his dreams were filled with the old horrors, of death and loss and the cold fires of hell. But sometimes they were nice. Hot cocoa with marshmallows. A bottle of Jack and an episode of _Passions_. A slow dance in a warm summer rain.

 

[Chapter Three](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/47447.html)


	3. All Goes Onward and Outward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (3/7)**_  
**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 3\. Those Angels, Forever Falling, Snare Us   
**Pairing: **Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners! Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=All+Goes+Onward+and+Outward&filter=all).  
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
  
**  
Chapter Three**

**Those Angels, Forever Falling, Snare Us**

 

My mother laughs

 

At the angels who wait for us to pause

During the most ordinary of days

 

And sing our praise to forgetfulness

Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.

 

Those angels burden and unbalance us.

Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.

 

Those angels, forever falling, snare us

And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.

\--Sherman Alexie, _Grief Calls Us to the Things of the World_


 

When the door opened, he was so startled he froze in shock. He’d almost forgotten there was a door there at all.

A guard beckoned him out and he came slowly, warily as a frightened fawn. He blinked in the harsh lights of the corridor, trying to keep his equilibrium amidst the sudden onslaught of sensory input.

The guards shackled him and took him away. They had gone through three separate locked barriers before it occurred to him that nobody had ordered him not to speak. “Where…where are we going?” he asked, his voice cracked and hesitant.

“Visitors,” said one of the men, prodding him forward.

Visitors? He didn’t think he was permitted any. And who would come to see him? He had no one.

They brought him to a small room with a metal table. There were two chairs on one side of the table, one on the other. They told him to sit and then they locked his wrists and ankles to his chair.

One of the guards, an older-looking bloke with a tattoo of an eagle on his forehead, leaned in close. He smelled of cut grass. Perhaps he’d mowed his lawn before he came to work today.

“You behave yourself, you hear?” he growled. “You act up, we’ll run you right back to that hole for good, and no more books, either. Got it?”

Spike nodded meekly. Jesus, what if they took away his books?

The guards gave him a final glare and then left. He waited a while. This room was warmer than his cell, and his body sucked in the heat gratefully. He heard footsteps and the door swung open.

Two people came in. Spike’s nostrils flared as soon as he scented them. One of them—a bird who looked perhaps thirty—was a Slayer. The other carried the unmistakable old paper and dust smell of a Watcher. Spike eyed them guardedly as they sat across from them. They both seemed taken aback by his nudity.

“Erm, Mr. Pratt, we’ve—“

“Spike. My name is Spike.”

The Watcher cleared his throat. “I do apologize. _Spike_. I’m Dylan Hartley, and this is Lucy Cherukuri.” He nearly put out his hand to shake, then thought better of it. “We’re—“

“Watcher and Slayer.”

“Precisely. Mr., erm, Spike, I must begin by begging your forgiveness. The Council wasn’t aware you’d been taken into custody until the trial began, and by then it was rather too late to explain to the Americans who you were.”

“I reckon they knew perfectly well who I am. That’s why they keep me locked up.”

“Yes, well, if we’d known earlier, we might have been able to pull some strings and secure your release. As it was, however, the media attention was already too great, and we’ve had to negotiate with them for years simply to speak with you today.”

“Years. How long has it been, mate?”

“Nearly a decade, I’m afraid.”

Spike swallowed and turned his head away. When he could speak calmly again, he asked, “If you’d known when they first nabbed me, would you lot have tried to free me then?”

Hartley nodded vigorously. “Yes. The Council has long valued your contributions.”

“Well, that’s very nice, but I don’t seem to have any place to pin the medal.” He glanced down significantly at his bare chest. “So if that’s why you’re here, ta and all, you can go on your merry—“

“Cut the crap, both of you!” Both men looked at the Slayer, who’d spoken for the first time. “We didn’t come all the way here to banter.”

“Yeah? So why did you come here, love?”

She glared at him in a way that promised she had a sharpened piece of wood hidden somewhere on her person, ready if she needed it. But he didn’t fear staking, so he smirked at her.

“We have a proposition for you,” she growled.

“Oh?” He lifted one eyebrow suggestively. “Been some time for me, but if you’ll give me a mo to get warmed up—“

“A _business_ proposition!”

“Not buying any. Out of dosh.”

“We were rather more thinking of a trade, Spike.” Hartley’s eyes were an odd grey color, like the ocean before a storm.

“Haven’t anything to trade, either.”

The humans exchanged a look. “Actually, you do,” said the man.

“Yeah? What?”

“It…. This will require a bit of a story.”

“I think I can fit you into my calendar.”

“Very well. You see—“

“Wait.” The woman held up a slim hand. “Can’t he put some clothes on first?”

“’M afraid I’m already wearing my entire wardrobe, pet.”

Both his visitors scowled unhappily at this, and then Hartley looked at his companion questioningly. She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Fine. Go ahead.”

Spike grinned and settled back as comfortably as he could, as the Watcher began his tale.

“Some years ago—over twenty, I believe—a member of the Council discovered several documents that had been hidden away for many centuries. There had been rumors of these documents before, but nobody was certain that they weren’t just myths, and if they did exist, their precise contents were unclear. But this woman—she was called Nyaga Molefi—actually found them and began to catalog and translate them. They were quite difficult to translate. Some of them were in languages nobody at all could even recognize.

“There was one particularly difficult scroll that Dr. Molefi worked on for years. She had the impression that it was terribly important, but she was only able to get hints of its meaning. She rather obsessed over it, really.

“And then, just a few years ago, she suddenly became very excited. She mentioned to several other members of the Council that she believed she was very close to a breakthrough with the scroll, that she had discovered some means of gaining an understanding of it.

“But then she was murdered.”

The Slayer shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She looked down at her hands, which were clenched tightly on the table.

“Was she your Watcher, then?” Spike asked softly.

She nodded, not meeting his eyes.

“It was quite…quite shocking,” Hartley said, and his voice wavered a bit, as if he hadn’t yet fully recovered. He took a deep breath, steadying himself.

“The people responsible for killing her apparently were trying to make sure that her work was not completed. They attempted to destroy the scroll as well, but Dr. Molefi had placed several strong wards on it, and they were unable even to touch it. It’s a pity she didn’t place those protections on herself as well.”

The Slayer made a small noise and Hartley glanced at her apologetically. “Yes, well, she did tend to place her own well-being much lower than her obligations. In any case,” he continued, “the scroll survived. But we were unable to do anything with it, a quandary that has caused us great consternation indeed.”

Under ordinary circumstances, Spike would have yelled at this tosser to bloody get on with it already. But the more time he took, the longer Spike was out of his cell, and this was by far the most entertainment he’d had in a very long time.

“Since Dr. Molefi’s death we have consulted with a variety of experts to see if we could complete her work. We finally found a demon, actually, an Ytrgantok, who understood a portion of the document and was willing to help us in exchange for some concessions.”

Spike snorted. He’d met Ytrgantok and he had an inkling what those concessions likely had involved. Several tons of dead fish for starters, he’d wager.

Hartley gave a small smile. “The demon proved quite helpful. We learned that the scroll was actually bespelled, and that it would take several unusual items to break the spell and permit the message to be decoded, as it were. Dr. Molefi had evidently got this far, because she was able to accumulate several of those things. We have been working since on the others. But one item has proved…particularly elusive.”

He looked at Spike expectantly.

“And you think I have this thing? Because what you see is what you get, mate. I don’t have any mystical knickknacks stashed away anywhere.” And he lifted an eyebrow as if to suggest the only place he could possibly stash anything. Hartley colored slightly and the Slayer huffed out an irritated puff of air.

“It’s not a knickknack we’re wanting, vampire,” she snapped.

“Then?”

“Your soul.”

He gaped at them wordlessly for some time. They both stared back at him expressionlessly. Finally, he said, “My _soul_?”

The Watcher nodded. “Yes. We require a human soul.”

“’M not human.”

“No. But your soul is. It belonged to the human you once were.”

Spike blinked at him. “Why mine?”

Hartley shrugged. “Where else are we to get one?”

“Would…would I get it back?”

“I’m afraid not. It would be permanently destroyed.”

“I fought for my soul. Bloody near got myself dusted. Why would I want to give it to you?”

“If you do, we can arrange to make the conditions of your incarceration a great deal more pleasant.”

Spike laughed harshly. “Going to take me to an island with a very nice beach, Clarice?”

“What? I’m afraid I don’t—“

“Never mind. Before your time.”

“We can get you a larger cell, with access to outdoors. A holo screen. Furniture. Clothing. We can—“

“I give up my soul and you’ll treat me like a man, is that it?”

“Spike, we have good reason to believe that your soul will be the key to unlock a prophecy, a prophecy that foretells a coming apocalypse. If we can understand the prophecy, we may be able to stop it.”

Spike was angry now. “I gave my unlife to save the world. I gave my friends to save the world. I gave…almost everything I had. I’ve been doing work for you lot since before your great-grandmum was born. And it’s not enough. You people want the only thing I have left.”

His voice had risen, and a nervous-looking guard appeared in the doorway, shock-stick in his hand. Hartley waved his hand at the guard. “It’s all right. We’re fine. Leave us, please.” The guard glared at Spike and disappeared.

“No. No. You’ve taken enough from me. You’ve…. No. I won’t give this up.” He would have walked out of the room and back to his cell, had he been able. As it was, he fought the urge to change to gameface, to snarl at them through glistening fangs.

“Tell him the rest, Dylan,” the Slayer commanded.

“Very well. There is one more thing we can offer you, Spike.”

“A pile of rotting tuna? Forget it. Not my taste.”

“Companionship.”

“Compan—What? You mean to have a whore come let me fuck her now and then? Because without the soul, I’d drain her.”

“Not a…a…prostitute.” The man looked nervously at his feet. “A vampire, of sorts.”

Spike cocked his head. “You’ll double-cell me with a fellow member of the undead? How many of us do you have locked away?”

“You’re the only one, presently. But…we have it in our power to obtain another. A specific one.”

Spike actually growled slightly. “Will you stop with the games and tell me what you’re bloody on about, already?”

It was the Slayer who answered. “Angelus.”

For the second time in a few minutes, Spike found himself momentarily speechless. “Say again?”

“Angelus. We can bring you Angelus, vampire.”

“Angelus dusted long ago. I was there.”

Hartley nodded. “So he did. But we can bring him back.”

“Bring…bring him back?”

“We are in possession of a ritual that will raise him from hell. You may be familiar with the ritual. Wolfram and Hart used it to resurrect your great-grandsire.”

“All that he did, and you think he’s still in hell?”

“We know he is, vampire,” the Slayer said. “Did you really think a few years of playing hero was going to save him?”

Spike sighed, suddenly terribly weary. “No. I didn’t.” But he had secretly hoped otherwise. “Look, if you can bring Peaches back, why not take his soul? He sheds the thing like a snake sheds its skin. Just have to get him a proper shagging.”

The Watcher shook his head. “If we bring him back, he’ll be human, Spike. And not so easily separable from his soul.”

Spike had forgotten that bit. Angel had told him how Darla was human, and then Dru sired her, throwing their entire lineage into an incestuous tangle.

“If you do this, you’ll be potentially preventing a catastrophe, you’ll find your own, erm, living conditions improved, and you’ll be aiding Angelus as well.”

“What would happen to him?”

“He would stay with you.”

“You think he’d be satisfied locked in a cell with me? He’d probably rather stay in hell.”

“I doubt that very much.”

Spike narrowed his eyes at the man. “That’s hardly fair for him. Having to stay locked up. He wasn’t convicted of anything, and he’ll be a real boy.”

“We’ve discussed this at length with the Americans. If we were to release him, they’d only try him as they did you. His past crimes were worse than yours.”

Spike shook his head. “And then he spent years as a sodding hero. It’s not right.”

“We’re trying to save the world, Spike.”

Spike bit at his lip. Not like he should expect the Council to be Boy Scouts. They always were a devious lot. Cold. Willing to do whatever they had to to achieve their goals. He had a sudden memory of Robin Wood and a garage full of crosses, and he shivered.

“Well?” demanded Lucy Cherukuri. “This is the best offer you’ll get. If you don’t take it, we’ll find a way to get your soul without your permission.”

Spike glared at her. But truly, he found himself battling tears. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t—

Fuck.

What did it matter?

He shut his eyes for a minute.

“All right,” he said.

 

[Chapter Four](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/47639.html)


	4. All Goes Onward and Outward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (4/7)**_  
**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 4\. Love Is Not Dead   
**Pairing: **Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** This fic has 7 chapters, which I'll be posting over the next few days. It was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, The Law:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners!  Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=All+Goes+Onward+and+Outward&filter=all).  
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
  
**  
Chapter Four**

**Love Is Not Dead**
    
    
    No, love is not dead in this heart these eyes and this mouth
    
    
    that announced the start of its own funeral.
    
    
    Listen, I've had enough of the picturesque, the colorful
    
    
    and the charming.
    
    
    I love love, its tenderness and cruelty.
    
    
    My love has only one name, one form.

Everything disappears. All mouths cling to that one.

\--Robert Desnos, _No, Love Is Not Dead_

 

He had thought he’d feel freer without the heavy burden of his soul. And at first, when the Council’s witches had chanted their incantations and waved their smelly bundles of herbs, he had felt better. It was is if he had been harnessed to a cart of rocks all these years, and the cart had suddenly been unhooked.

But after a short period of time, he realized that what he really felt was loss.

It wasn’t like with his grandsire. The demon Angelus had been forcibly enslaved, and had spent years festering somewhere deep in Angel’s consciousness, only able to effect its will in small and intermittent ways. It was bitter and not a little mad.

But Spike had wanted the soul, had welcomed it. Though he’d certainly gone through a brief period of insanity when he received it—with no help at all from the First Evil, which had been lurking about—and although he still was wracked with guilt over actions long past, he’d adapted. He’d gone on with his existence. Even, at times, enjoyed the depth of feeling the soul had enabled him to have, not to mention the knowledge that his ensouled behaviors were a matter of choice, rather than compulsion.

He’d seen his soul captured in a glass orb, glittering and sparkling like the most precious of jewels, and now he mourned it. It was a thing of great value, and he’d permitted it to be destroyed.

At least, now that he was without a soul or a chip for the first time in so very long, it would have been nice if he could have hunted again. Just one last time, acted like a proper vampire.

Instead, he was alone in his new and improved cage, waiting to see if they’d keep their promise about Angel.

They hadn’t lied about the cell. It was larger, perhaps five meters square instead of three. It contained a cot with a hard, narrow mattress, and scratchy sheets, and a thin pillow. There was a chair, too, quite a large and comfortable one, although the upholstery was an odd orange color that reminded him of the one Xander Harris had tied him to in his basement. They’d installed a holo screen, and given him a library of films he could access. There were books, several dozen all at once, a true bounty after the stingy rations he’d had. There was an entire loo area in one corner, with a toilet and sink and shower. And now there was soap, and a towel, and deliciously warm water. He had clothing as well—just a loose pair of grey trousers and a grey shirt, but it was something.

Best of all, though, in addition to the door that led out into the corridor, there was a second door. His keepers unlocked it at sundown each night, and if he wished he could slide it open then and go outside.

Outside was simply another enclosure, roughly the same size as the cell. The walls were too high and smooth to scale, and he could see nothing over them but sky. The ground was bare concrete. But when he first went outside, the concrete would still be radiating the heat it had stored during the day, and he could lie on it, taking that borrowed sunshine into his thankful body. And he could look up and see the stars and, at times, the moon, and watch clouds scudding by, and breathe in night scents. Sometimes he could even pick up the sound of a bird calling somewhere—an owl or a mockingbird—or crickets chirping, or the wind blowing through treetops.

It was, in the end, a collection of prizes as flimsy as those from a carnival game. Hardly worth a soul. Sometimes he felt as if he’d traded the Hope diamond for a Crackerjack toy. But he’d had little choice, and he was a bit more comfortable, and at least some of the harrying voices in his dreams had been silenced.

 

He was sprawled across the chair, half-watching a Bollywood film from a hundred years ago, when the door crashed open. He leapt hastily to his feet.

There were several guards, so many he couldn’t see them all through the narrow doorway. But front and center was a man dressed, like Spike, in thin cotton clothes, barefoot, his hands cuffed behind him.

Angel.

Spike stopped breathing.

Angel’s hair was a trifle long and disarrayed, and his eyes had deep shadows underneath. His shoulders were hunched and he squinted at Spike in confusion. He was still very pale. But even from across the room, Spike could hear his heart beating, could smell the humanity of him.

A guard unlatched the manacles and pushed Angel into the cell, then locked the door behind him.

Angel and Spike stood, silent, unmoving.

It was Spike who spoke first. “Angel?” he said softly, as if he doubted the identity of the man before him.

Angel backed away until he was up against the unyielding door. He slid along the wall, then, stopping when he got to the corner farthest from Spike and sinking to his arse in a protective crouch. His eyes never left Spike.

“Angel? Do you…do you remember me?”

“Go away,” Angel whispered, voice hoarse as if he’d screamed a long time. “Can’t fool me.”

“Can’t go anywhere. ‘M locked in here, same as you.”

Angel put hid his face on his knees and covered his head with his arms. “Go away.”

Spike hovered uncertainly. When he took a step closer to Angel, though, the man scrunched more tightly in on himself and actually whimpered. So Spike backed away. He sat back down in the orange chair and turned back to the holo screen. Periodically, he glanced at the man in the corner, who still had his long arms wrapped around himself, and who was rocking himself rhythmically forward and back.

By the time the overhead light dimmed, Spike was tired and Angel hadn’t budged from the corner. “All right then,” Spike said. “Going to get my beauty sleep. Wake me if you want to chat.” He skimmed off his clothes, folded them neatly, and set them in a pile beside the cot. Then he slipped between the sheets and closed his eyes and pretended he didn’t hear the quiet keening from across the room.

 

_WHACK!_

He woke abruptly when his head smacked into the metal floor and thirteen stone or so of Irish former vampire landed on his stomach.

“What the hell are you doing?” Angel snarled, the heels of his hands digging hard into Spike’s shoulders.

“Was having a nice kip,” he replied mildly.

Angel punched him in the nose. Cartilage snapped and Spike smelled his own blood. “Oi! Mind the face!”

“What the fuck is going on?” Angel slugged him again, this time cracking Spike’s head back against the floor again and, likely, blackening an eye. That was enough. With a roar, Spike bucked up, knocking Angel off him. He seized Angel’s biceps and rolled the man onto his back, and then Spike straddled him, much as Angel had been straddling him a moment ago.

Angel writhed and swore under him, but Spike easily held him in place. And then Spike laughed, because he realized that he was a vampire and now Angel was just a feeble human, and for the first time, Spike would have no trouble at all besting his grandsire in a fight. In fact, he could lean forward right now and drain him, and sod all the pillock could do about it.

He didn’t, though. Instead he simply held Angel down, watching the red droplets from his nose spatter onto the man’s broad chest, until finally Angel stilled. He was panting and his face was red.

“Ready to act civilized?” Spike asked.

Angel continued to glare daggers at him, but he nodded, and Spike released the pressure on his arms. He didn’t dismount yet, though. He wasn’t completely daft.

“All right, then. No more hitting, right?”

Angel nodded again. Spike took a deep breath and wiped the blood away from his face with his forearm.

“It’s really you?” Angel asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, mate.”

“What…where…how….??”

“Long story.” Spike got off of Angel and stood. Angel pulled himself into a sitting position while Spike tugged on his clothing and then sat sideways on the bed. Angel just stared at him in bewilderment, and Spike felt a twinge of sympathy for the git.

“Did the Watchers tell you anything? Or the guards?”

“The Watch—No. Nobody told me….” His voice died away and he rubbed his face hard.

“You’ve…you’ve been in hell, then? Again?”

Angel closed his eyes and nodded once.

“Well, now you’re not. You’re back in California, I think, and, well, you’re human, yeah?”

Angel looked down at himself as if this hadn’t yet occurred to him. He placed two fingers on his neck, feeling the pulse that beat there now, the pulse that Spike could hear from several feet away.

“How?”

“Remember Darla? They’ve done the same to you.”

Angel looked alarmed. “Wolfram and Hart?”

“No. They’re…pretty much out of the picture right now. It was the Watchers Council.”

“Why?”

“They needed…something from me. You were part of the price.”

Angel blinked at that. “Where are we?”

“A prison. They locked me up here for my crimes against humanity.”

“And me?”

Spike shrugged. “You get stuck here too. I expect it’s an improvement over your last home.”

Angel’s jaw clenched. “They’ll get me out. Gunn—“

“Charlie’s dead. Never made it out of the alley.”

“Wes?”

“Dead. Liam, they’re _all_ dead. Every last one of them. I’m all that’s left.”

“No. No, that’s not—“

“Do you know what year it is?”

“No.”

“Actually, I’m not so certain myself. But it’s something like 2173.”

Angel stood and backed away from him. “Twenty-one—No. You’re lying.”

“No reason to.”

Angel abruptly turned and went to the door. He tried to pry it open, but there was no knob and the seam was barely even visible. So then he pounded on it instead, but that produced no response except bruised and bloody hands. He tried the other door, then, the one that led to the outdoor enclosure, but it was still locked, and he had no greater success there. Spike watched him silently as he paced around, looking in vain for some escape. Spike could hardly blame him. He’d done the same himself, and he hadn’t had the shocks that Angel just experienced.

Angel finally sank into his corner again, looking exhausted. For a very long time, he said nothing. Spike picked up the book he’d left next to the bed and began reading.

“What did you give them, Spike?” Angel asked a good deal later, the last word said with such venom that Spike actually flinched.

Spike looked up from his book. “My soul,” he said flatly.

Angel gaped for a moment. “Your…. You gave them your _soul_?”

“Sold it to them, for you and a few creature comforts.” He waved around the cell at the furniture and the holo screen.

“Why?”

“They needed it for some mojo. Stopping an apocalypse, all that usual rot.”

“No. Why did you do it? I thought…I thought you liked being ensouled.”

“I was used to it, yeah. But they didn’t give me any choice, did they? Would’ve taken it anyway. And my last cell…it wasn’t nearly as nice as this palace they have us in.” Angel looked around the room doubtfully.

“So they left me here, human and imprisoned with a soulless demon?”

Spike chuckled bitterly. “Told them you’d rather burn.”

“What do you want from me, Spike? You plan to kill me?”

“Yeah, that makes loads of sense. Barter to bring you back to life so I can murder you.” He couldn’t stop himself from grinning wickedly and patting his stomach. “Besides, not hungry right now.”

Angel narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re going to turn me.”

“Is that what you want, Peaches? Be rid of that pesky soul once and for all?”

“No.”

“Well, I reckon I’ve had enough of Angelus to last several lifetimes.” And the last thing he’d want was to be caged with that bastard.

“Then what do you want with me?”

Spike heard the lock to the outside door click open, and he put down the book and stood. He leered at Angel. “Gets lonesome in here, with just my left hand for company.” He waved the appendage in the air, waggling his fingers. “Fancied a nice, hot shag now and then.”

Angel looked truly alarmed and pressed more deeply into the corner. “Spike, look, I—“

“Was only taking the piss. Watcher told me you were in hell. I’ve seen the place, remember? I thought even in here, with me, was better than that.”

Angel looked at him, and Spike saw antipathy and disbelief in his eyes. “Bugger this,” Spike muttered, and he stomped to the door, slid it open, and flung himself down outside on the warm pavement.

 

Days passed without them speaking to each other.

The food slot in this cell was slightly wider, and there was a shelf just beneath it. Three times a day, it opened and a tray of food appeared. Angel stalked over and grabbed it, and then sat in his corner to eat it. Spike rather wished Angel would offer to share a bit; it had been so long since he’d tasted anything but animal blood. But Angel never did, and Spike wasn’t about to ask. When he finished, Angel put the empty tray back on the shelf, and it would be taken away at the next meal. Once a day a packet of blood appeared, and then it was Spike’s turn to eat.

They left Angel a safety razor, and he did a sloppy job of using it with no mirror. He was out of practice as well—it had been several centuries since he’d last grown facial hair.

Angel hated having to use the toilet, especially in Spike’s full view. When he saw the man heading in that direction, Spike turned his back to grant him a spot of privacy. He didn’t turn when Angel showered, though. He liked to watch him, to see the play of his bulky muscles. Angel glowered at him the first time or two and then ignored him.

It took Angel some time to suss out how to work the holo screen, and Spike didn’t offer to help. Once he did get it working, they fell without discussion into an informal sharing scheme, where one would watch the screen or read in the chair while the other slept in the lone bed.

Periodically, they were given fresh clothes, and ordered to pass the old ones through the slot.

The odd thing was, despite the silence, despite the death glares they exchanged, there was still something companionable about the situation. Spike had had so little interaction with others for so long, that even his grandsire’s brooding, frowning company was welcome.

Spike was watching the holo one night—thank the gods there was still football—when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Angel was sitting on the bed and staring at him, his big brow furrowed.

“What?” he asked defensively. It was the first word out of his mouth in over a week.

“I was just wondering.”

“What?”

“You really sold your soul?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why are you just…sitting there?”

Spike puffed in annoyance. “Not much opportunity for bloody mayhem, is there?”

“I mean…you’re acting pretty much the same as when you had a soul.”

“I’m not Angelus, berk. Never was. Besides, I carried that thing for a hundred and fifty years. I expect it had some lasting effects.”

“You really don’t want to kill me.”

“Not yet.”

“If our roles were reversed, I’d—Angelus would have torn out your throat by now.”

“Like I said. ‘M not Angelus.”

Angel stood and walked over, until he was between Spike and the holo screen. “So why did you bring me here?”

“Told you. Didn’t…didn’t want to think of you burning.”

“You felt bad for me.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanted to rescue me?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw you, you know. In the alley. You were trying to help me kill that dragon.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t work out so well, did it?”

Angel crossed his arms on his chest. “Okay. So…so you cared about me.”

Spike looked away. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“But that was with the soul. Now….”

Spike’s voice was still very quiet. “Can still care, without a soul. I loved Dru without one. Loved Buffy. That was real.”

Angel shook his head. “I’ll never understand you, William.”

Spike smiled slightly. “You never did, mate.”

Angel didn’t reply. He just stood there, staring, and after a while he walked away. Spike went back to watching football, but every so often he glanced at the bed, and Angel was watching him.

 

The silence between them slowly dissolved. They still argued now and then, or Spike would snark and Angel would roll his eyes. But more often, they’d squeeze amicably together into the ugly orange chair, or they’d sit outside, leaning against the walls and reminiscing. Angel never spoke about hell, and Spike didn’t really need to hear about it. But Spike told Angel of the adventures he’d had since the alley, and they’d both talk about the times they’d had together, with or without souls, or about absent mutual friends.

So one day, when they were watching an ancient James Bond film together, it seemed almost natural when they turned to each other and began to kiss. And after that, the progression from snogging to groping felt so bloody good, and it had been so long, so long for both of them, and then they were tangled with one another atop the narrow cot until they rolled to the floor, and they were cold and hot at once, and remembering that one time, nearly three centuries past now, and still the taste of one another was fine and familiar and right.

It didn’t stop the bickering. It didn’t change the fact that they were stuck here, like animals in a cage, or that there was no hope of an end to it in sight for Spike, and only aging and death awaited Angel. But it was comfort, and it was good. It made their existence bearable. It was, even Angel admitted, better than hell.

 

[Chapter Five](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/47873.html)


	5. All Goes Onward and Outward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, _The Law_:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (5/7)**_

**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 5\. Me Only Cruel Immortality Consumes   
**Pairing: **Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** This was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, _The Law_:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners! Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=All+Goes+Onward+and+Outward&filter=all).   
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

**I'll be posting the final 3 chapters today.**

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
  
**  
Chapter Five**

**Me Only Cruel Immortality Consumes**

 

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

And after many a summer dies the swan.

Me only cruel immortality

Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms,

Here at the quiet limit of the world,

A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream

\--Lord Alfred Tennyson, _Tithonus_

 

 

Sometimes, the injustice of it all tore at Spike’s unbeating heart and unsouled core. Not so much for him. He had what he’d bargained for, even if he’d been forced into the bargain. But Angel had been given a small bit of what he’d yearned for so much—his humanity—without the rest, without the chance to redeem himself. Without even the chance to sit in the sun. Because of Spike, because their keepers feared that the vampire would allow himself to combust if they allowed the door open during the day, the lock was only unfastened once the sun had gone down.

Three times over the years Spike refused to go inside at dawn, when a disembodied voice commanded him to get inside. Three times guards appeared atop the wall and shot him and Angel both with something that caused horrible pain, and that paralyzed them for hours. The guards dragged their twitching bodies inside and locked the door. They weren’t permitted outside again for weeks.

He used to almost hate Angel. Somehow, he’d got to the point where he’d endure final death and damnation just so his love could look up at a blue sky and feel the sun’s rays bathing his face. It only took three hundred years.

 

The problem with being mortal was mortality.

Spike knew that. After all, he’d lost friends before. But even as he listened to Angel’s heart beat against him, each beat meaning one more moment of life lived, one less moment to go, he didn’t really believe that Angel would grow old and die.

He saw the gray hairs sprout, the fine lines indent themselves at the corners of his eyes and across his forehead. He teased him sometimes about the extra few pounds that had settled around the man’s midsection, and that no amount of jogging around the cell would get rid of.

Still, he didn’t really _believe_.

And then one day he looked up from his book, and he saw that Angel was rubbing his belly and wincing.

“Okay, pet?”

“Yeah. Just kinda sore. Maybe we overdid it last night.”

Spike grinned up at him. “Can’t keep up, old man?”

Angel mock-growled at him.

They took it easy that night, but Angel still hurt the next day. And the next. And a few afternoons later he was on his knees, vomiting into the toilet. Spike didn’t have to look into the metal bowl to panic—he smelled the blood right away.

Spike began to yell for help, but nobody came.

When the meal slot clicked open, Spike darted over and shouted through it. “Help! He’s sick. He needs a doctor, goddammit. Please!”

Still nobody came.

Angel spent the rest of the day hunched by the toilet, clutching his abdomen and moaning. Spike tried to get some water in him, but he only threw it right back up, tinged shocking pink.

As soon as the lock clicked open, Spike ran outside and screamed as loud as he could. “Come help him, you bloody wankers! Don’t leave him like this!”

By the time the guards finally arrived, two days later, Angel was nearly comatose, his head pillowed in Spike’s lap. They held shock-sticks to Spike’s chest as they heaved his grandsire onto a stretcher. And then they left.

They didn’t come back.

 

Spike huddled in a fetal position on the cot, his back to the door. He heard another packet of blood fall through the slot, landing with a soft _plop_ on the others, but he didn’t move. His head was turned so that his nose was buried in the pillow, and he could still smell Angel there. That, and his own salty tears, long since dried.

He’d believed once that a vampire could never resist the hunger. He’d been wrong.

To the extent he thought at all, it was to wonder at the fact that every time he thought he had nothing left to lose, he managed to lose a little bit more.

 

They strapped him down and they force-fed him blood. When they pulled out the tube he wept and begged them to leave him be, let him crumble away to nothing, because nothing was all he was.

Even as a ghost, all those years ago, he’d been so much more than this.

They untied him, and without answering his pleas, they went away.

When he still refused to feed on his own they came back, and came back again, and finally he did bite into a packet and choke the contents down, only to be free of the painful tube down his throat. The blood was the same as always, but it tasted like dust.

He didn’t watch the holo or read his books or go outside. They could have thrown him back in the other cell, the one they’d put him in at first, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

And then one day the door opened, and the guards led him out, shambling and chained. The corridors seemed so long, the spaces so large.

The took him through heavy gates and down in a lift, and then they were at a set of glass doors. Outside was a parking lot, nearly empty, and beyond that a smudge of trees. It was cloudy out, the moon reflecting weakly through the water vapor in the sky.

One of the guards unlocked his shackles, and another wordlessly shoved a pair of brown shoes in his hands. He blinked at the footwear, barely remembering what it felt like to have something on his feet.

A woman whose mouth looked perpetually set in a scowl moved up very close to him. She was tall, nearly as tall as he, and she had pretty brown eyes. “The Watchers will be trackin’ ya. If ya hurt anybody, you’ll be back here quicker’n ya can blink, and yer accommodations will be way less accomodatin’. Got it?”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“Amnesty.” She spit the word out like it was obscene. “Damn fools in Congress have given demons amnesty, so long as they keep their noses clean.”

“I can…I can go?”

“Yep. Just gotta keep those fangs to yerself. I don’t think ya can, myself. I’m down fer lessn’n two weeks in the office pool.”

His head was spinning. “Where am I meant to go?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Far away from here, I hope.”

Another guard, a thin man with a scanty blond moustache, came a bit closer. “I got an ex-wife in Redding. I could give you her address, you could go look the bitch up.” The guards all laughed loudly at this.

Somebody opened the doors and he was pushed roughly outside. The doors snicked shut behind him.

 

He lived for a time like the predator he was.

That first night, he walked into the forest and hastily built himself a shelter of branches against the hollow bole of an enormous tree. It was raining anyway, and come morning, the feeble sunlight couldn’t quite make it through the lattice of wood and leaves. It was cold, though, and he shivered in his thin, wet clothing.

When the sun set, he headed deeper into the trees until the ground started to rise under his sore feet—the shoes fit poorly and he discarded them early on—and he realized he was climbing up toward the sharp ridge of some mountains. Over the top of the ridge, he looked down into a steep valley. There was little sign of humans here, but, a distance away, right up against a small stream, his sharp eyes could just barely make out what appeared to be a tumbledown structure of some kind.

He slipped and fell several times as he descended, and by the time he reached the bottom only the steady drizzle kept him from being completely covered in mud. He picked his way wearily through the undergrowth, trying to ignore the rumble in his belly. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been hungry before.

Finally he reached his destination. It was a tiny cabin, clearly long abandoned but in better condition than he’d hoped. The roof was overgrown with moss and weeds, but it looked intact save for a few smallish holes. All four wooden walls were upright as well, weathered but whole. The door hung crookedly from a single hinge.

Inside it smelled of mold and dust and small creatures. There was a table and two straight-backed chairs, a large built-in chest with a rusted lock open and askew, and an empty platform for a mattress. It was almost dawn. He was so filthy anyway that he didn’t even bother to brush the animal droppings and spider webs and other debris off of the bed. He simply lay down on it and curled into himself and went to sleep.

He managed to get the place passably clean. Himself, too, thanks to the brook nearby. The woods were teeming with deer and other game, and he hunted and fed and watched the stars whirl overhead and slept. His flimsy clothes disintegrated and fell away. He didn’t track the days—what did it matter?—and he didn’t make plans and he didn’t think of the past. He merely was, as much a beast in the wilderness as the bears and cougars he sometimes scented nearby.

 

[Chapter Six](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/48344.html)


	6. All Goes Onward and Outward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, _The Law_:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (6/7)**_  
**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 6\. This Was No Dream   
**Pairing:** Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** This was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, _The Law_:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners! Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=All+Goes+Onward+and+Outward&filter=all).   
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

**I'll be posting the final 3 chapters today.**

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
  
**  
Chapter Six**

**This Was No Dream**

 

And not till he saw the angel had left him,

alone and free to resume

the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of

what he had still to do,

not till then did he recognize

this was no dream. More frightening

than arrest, than being chained to his warders:

he could hear his own footsteps suddenly.

Had the angel's feet

made any sound? He could not recall.

No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit.

He himself must be

the key, now, to the next door,

the next terrors of freedom and joy.

\--Denise Levertov, _St. Peter and the Angel_

 

It was a dream that pulled him back to civilization. Or, more accurately, several dreams, all the same.

His nightmares had become better when he was freed of the soul. None of his victims visited him in his sleep anymore, and that was a true relief. He still replayed the losses of his loved ones—his mum, Dru, Buffy, even Fred—and now he dreamt especially often of Angel. He hoped he hadn’t died alone. Perhaps he’d at least had a guard or nurse at his side as he slipped away. Spike hoped Angel had realized how much Spike cared for him. And his most fervent wish was that Angel had finally found the peace he’d so sought after, that somehow he’d finally been redeemed.

And then one day he dreamt of a city with tall, shiny buildings, a city bound in the tangled fetters of old highways and caught between the mountains and the sea. A city teeming with ghosts and phantom memories. Something evil was in this city.

He woke up shortly before sunset and shook away the tatters of sleep. He stood and stretched and caressed his rumbly belly, and he forgot about the dream before he’d even stepped over the cabin’s threshold.

In the morning he came back and collapsed back onto his sleeping platform. His muscles were pleasantly tired and his stomach was rounded and taut, full of warm, fresh blood. Leaves and bits of twigs were tangled in his wild hair. He fell asleep almost immediately, and as soon as he did, the dream returned.

It returned the day after as well, and the day after, until he was seeing those gleaming towers and feeling that sense of quiet malevolence even when he was awake and running though the trees. Until finally he stood one evening on the creaking floorboards of his cabin and looked outside into the darkening night. “All right,” he said. It was the first time he’d spoken in a very long time. “Time to get this sorted.” And he set out for Los Angeles.

 

He had to nick some clothes on the way, and even dressed, he knew he still looked feral. So he picked a man’s pocket on a crowded street in Modesto, and he used some of the credits to rent a hotel room. After some sleep on a mattress that felt too soft, he soaked for hours in the big bath, refilling it whenever the water cooled. He’d bought a scissors as well, and he used it to trim his hair to a more respectable length. Then, for the first time in many, many decades, he bleached his hair platinum and gelled it back. It made him feel like himself, somehow.

At sundown he walked to the transport station. The next train to LA came along in less than thirty minutes. He enjoyed the brief journey, watching out the windows as the flat farmland whizzed by.

He had no idea where to begin looking in LA, or even if there was truly anything to look for. And if he found it, he had no idea what he was going to do about it. But lack of a plan was really nothing new for him, and if the dreams really were some sort of message sent by…somebody…then he expected that perhaps eventually that somebody might give him some guidance.

For a time he was satisfied with simply wandering around the city, taking in the sights and sounds and smells he’d missed during the years of his confinement and exile. He had just enough credits left to rent a cheap room for a week, and to stock up on some blood from a butcher’s, and to get blissfully, roaringly drunk. When he was flat broke and out of blood and liquor, he looked for another source of income. He could have easily stolen more, of course, but if the guard had been telling the truth and the Watchers really were, well, watching, he’d be better off on the right side of the law for now. He got into a nice fight with a Tklag’hoch at a rough and tumble demon bar called Mike’s one night after the huge creature tried to bully him. It ended up getting carted away by its friends, still alive but more or less in pieces, while Spike was only a bit bruised and scraped. Mike offered to take him on as security in exchange for blood bank rejects and enough dosh to cover his rent and a bit. Spike accepted.

A demon bar was as good a place as any to keep an ear open for nastiness. For weeks, Spike leaned against a wall, a glass of something in his hand, listening in on the patrons’ conversations. He learned quite a bit of what was going on, but it all seemed just run of the mill malice. No sign of a Big Bad.

His basement flat was just a few block from Mike’s. When the daylight trapped him inside, he sat on the lumpy brown sofa, watching the holo and wishing cigarettes were still available. Sometimes it occurred to him to wonder why he should care if the evil thing from his dream truly lurked here. He was evil himself, wasn’t he? Now that his soul was gone for good. Except he didn’t feel particularly wicked. Not even naughty, really. The human blood Mike gave him was lovely after so many years of feeding on animals, but he had no particular desire to go out and sink his fangs directly into the source. What he felt was tired and lonely and a bit lost. Perhaps it was a sense of purpose he needed, and these dreams had given him one.

 

It was April and it was raining, and everyone in southern California seemed to take it personally. Both humans and demons were short-tempered and growly, and Spike had already had to break up several fights tonight. Off in the corner, what he was fairly sure was a female of some sort with greenish scales and a trio of red horns on her head was crying all three of her eyes out while a similar-looking demon patted her on the back. So he hadn’t paid much mind to the pair of humans chatting quietly in one of the worn, red booths. Although Mike’s clientele was mostly demon, humans were common as well, and there was nothing remarkable about these two.

He did take notice, though, when a M’Fashnik sauntered in and, after glancing around the gloom for a moment, approached the humans. The tall, pretty woman in the smart suit scooted over so the demon could sit next to her. The three of them bent their heads close together. Curious, Spike sidled closer, perching himself on a stool that was close enough for him to overhear. He pretended to contemplate the amber depths of his tumbler of whiskey.

“—guarantee that it’ll be done right the first time.” That was the other human speaking, an Asian-looking bloke in a suit nearly as expensive as the bird’s.

“I always do good work!” snarled the demon. “Check my references.”

“We already have, or we wouldn’t be talking now. But I need to emphasize how important this matter is to our superiors.”

“Yeah, yeah. You pay me the credits, I off the guy, no problems at all.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Spike could see the humans look at each other for a moment. Then the woman nodded and the man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a white envelope. He set it in front of the demon.

“Here. This contains the specifics on our target, and one thousand credits,” the man said.

“My fee is fifteen hundred!”

“You get the job done right and quickly, and we’ll have another grand waiting for you in a week, right here.”

The M’Fashnik was silent for a bit. “All right,” he said, stuffing the envelope in his own pocket. “Same time, next Tuesday, then. You’d better be here with the rest.”

The woman smiled broadly. “You can count on it.”

The demon stood up and walked quickly to the door. Spike would have liked to follow him, but it would have been obvious, and besides, he was still supposed to be working. So instead he listened as the humans finished their drinks. The woman complained about her wine while the man frowned worriedly at her. “If this gets screwed up—“

“We both know the stakes, Gavin. Calm down. This guy’s the best.”

“I’d be a lot more comfortable if we did it ourselves.”

“Our boss was clear on this. He doesn’t want us involved that directly. Besides, _you’re_ still having problems maintaining solidity when you’re stressed.”

Gavin sighed heavily.

They left shortly after, and Spike stared thoughtfully at the empty table until a couple of Frovalox started to squabble loudly with each other and he had to go quiet them down.

 

Homicides had become rare in any case, but the murder of the city’s mayor was big, big news. The holo was filled with reports on the crime, even though nobody seemed to know much. Mayor Usmani had failed to come home from her evening jog. Police found her a half mile away, sprawled beneath some bushes, her throat sliced wide open. Vice-Mayor Marek expressed his deep sorrow to Usmani’s family and, before taking the oath of office, promised to continue the excellent work his predecessor had begun.

On Tuesday, the humans were back at Mike’s, and so was the M’Fashnik, who looked mighty pleased with the envelope they handed him. Again, the humans stayed a while after the demon left, and Spike eavesdropped.

“See? I told you. Piece of cake.”

“Yeah, okay. But that was just the first step, you know. If Marek doesn’t—“

“Marek’s going to do exactly what he’s told. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it, Gavin.”

“Yeah, I’d like my pretty little head to stay attached to my body.”

“Why? It’s not like it couldn’t be stuck back on anyway,” she laughed. And she twisted her head a bit and Spike saw a pale scar running the width of her neck.

“I’ve died once, Lilah. That was enough for me.”

“Oh, Gavin. We both know death isn’t the scariest thing that can happen to us.”

“Exactly. That’s why I want this thing to go smoothly.”

She laughed again and drained her glass. “You’d think they’d have stopped making crappy wine over the last couple centuries,” she muttered. “Look. Everything’s going to be fine. Marek’s fully on-board. A year from now, that’ll be you sitting in his office, right?”

“While you’re in Sacramento.”

She swept her hair back behind her shoulders. “What can I say? The partners think Governor Morgan’s got a better shot for the presidency than Governor Park.”

When the duo left this time, Spike mumbled something to Mike about how he’d be right back, and followed them out the door. But by the time he got outside there was no sign of the pair. He couldn’t even catch their scent. Frustrated, he went back inside.

He knew now, of course, what this was. Well, not the details of the scheme. But he knew who was behind it. Talk of partners, people rising from the dead. Besides, he recognized the bint’s name from the tales that Angel had told him in their cell. She was the one who gave Angel the amulet that Spike had worn to stop the Turok-Han. After all these years of reeling from the blow Spike had dealt them, it looked like those bloody lawyers were at it again.

All right, then. Here he went again.

 

Last time he’d gone up against Wolfram and Hart, he’d had allies. The Watchers Council had worked with him, along with several of their Slayers. He’d had witches and mages on his side, and men and women who could research circles even around Rupert Giles. In the end, it had been nearly enough. The LA branch was destroyed, the senior partners were crippled, and all of their business dealings were thrown into a disarray that had taken decades to untangle.

But he hadn’t quite been able to destroy them.

And now, he was all alone.

Oh, perhaps he could contact the Council again. But after they’d left him to rot in prison, only bothering to contact him when they wanted the last of himself he could give, he was even less inclined than ever to trust them.

So that left him, alone, as had been the case for most of the past many years. He’d simply have to give it his best.

He was hardly surprised when Mayor Marek appointed an attorney called Lilah Morgan as his Vice-Mayor. The official story was that she’d spent her career in public service, working behind the scenes for a small human rights agency that nobody seemed to have heard of before. Spike snorted when he heard this. Human rights. Brilliant.

The woman began showing up on the holo quite a lot, smiling at people as she attended various functions. She appeared quite popular.

And then, only a few weeks later, Mayor Marek announced that he was seriously ill, and would have to resign at once. Mayor Morgan appointed Gavin Park as her Vice-Mayor. The next gubernatorial election was in five months, and it seemed that Lilah intended to win it. It wasn’t clear how, however, when she was still relatively unknown and hadn’t even declared her candidacy yet.

Spike dug around as best as he could, trying to gather information. But there was precious little to be gathered. Unlike the former mayor, Lilah kept herself surrounded by security teams at all times, and Spike couldn’t get anywhere near her offices or home. If anyone else knew of Wolfram and Hart’s scheme, they were keeping quiet about it.

He was getting nowhere—and feeling bloody frustrated about it—when another human customer in a fancy suit showed up at the bar. This one was older and completely bald, with a pair of heavy black-rimmed glasses. He sat alone, drinking scotch and tapping his fingers impatiently on the grimy table, until he was joined by a skinny, rabbity-looking demon of some sort that Spike didn’t recognize. The demon sat across from him and set a small wooden box on the table.

“Here it is,” the demon announced in a squeaky voice.

“I see that.” The human sounded amused.

“Ten thousand.”

“Yes, that’s what we agreed on.”

“And you won’t activate it until—“

“Not for another week. We’d like it to coincide with the Green Party convention.”

“Fine. Just wanna make sure I have time to get me and mine outta here.”

The human slid a plastic card across the table. The demon scanned it with his e.a. and grinned. Then it stood. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with ya.”

After the demon left, the man sipped slowly at his drink. Then, very softly, he said, “Did you hear enough, vampire?”

Spike stiffened. Bugger.

“C’mon. I’ve been around long enough to know when someone’s listening in. Why don’t you come over here and we can have a little chat?”

Spike considered this for a moment, then shrugged and threw back the rest of his own whiskey. He sauntered over and threw himself in the seat the demon had just vacated.

“Planning a bit of a do, are you?” he asked.

“Something like that. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. Nathan Reed.” He stuck out his hand.

Spike smirked and didn’t offer his own. “Spike.” He had the satisfaction of seeing the man gape at him in horror and astonishment.

“Spike?! _The_ Spike? William the Bloody?”

“One and the same.”

“You—you—“

“Kicked your arses right and proper?”

Reed sputtered for a minute more, and then calmed and narrowed his eyes. “You won’t stop us this time. I’ll call the Mayor, and the police will be here in seconds. You’ll never see the outside of prison again.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that tale before, haven’t I? Besides, who said I want to stop you?”

“You certainly tried to before!”

“That was then. Things have changed.”

“What’s changed?”

Spike allowed his eyes to flash gold. “While I was locked up, they took my soul. Don’t have that sodding thing weighing me down any more.”

“So…you’re evil again?”

Spike smirked. “Call it what you will. I’ve spent centuries leashed with chips and souls, and now I’d like to get my own a bit, right? But those tossers the Watchers are spying on me, and I haven’t been able to do much.”

“And what is it you’d like to do, Spike?” The man’s voice was calmer now and calculating.

“Something big. Something that’ll send a message. They kept me in that cell for years, and I want them to regret every minute of it!” Again, he permitted just the faintest hint of amber eyes, just the briefest flash of sharpened teeth.

Reed frowned at him for several minutes. “Just a minute,” he said. He typed into his e.a. for a bit while Spike feigned indifference. Bloody hell! He wished he had a cigarette right now.

Finally, Reed looked up and smiled toothily. “How about you come with me, Spike? I have an idea.”

Spike pretended to think about it. Then he nodded. “All right.”

He told Mike that something had come up and he had to leave. Not that he’d likely survive tonight to return to his position, but he didn’t want to burn his bridges. Mike didn’t mind too much. It was a slow night anyway.

Spike followed Reed out into the night. Reed was carrying the wooden box. A car was waiting for them just down the block, and Reed ushered Spike in before him. They sat silently beside each other as the car hovered quickly through the streets.

They slowed in front of a large house, which Spike knew from his previous attempts to get close to Lilah was hers. The car slid into the garage, where two large men in dark suits waited. Spike sneered. They were humans—he could have swiftly dispatched them both, had he wanted to. But instead he followed them to the door, where Reed formally invited him inside, and then up some stairs, with Reed forming the tail end of their little parade.

Lilah was waiting for them in a large living room with sweeping views of the city. She was wearing a pair of black, silky trousers and a white sleeveless shirt. Her hair was up in a sloppy ponytail and she wasn’t wearing makeup.

“Well,” she said. “If I’d only known. I thought you were just a sexy guy in a bar, with a taste for retro fashion.”

Spike grinned wolfishly at her. “Oh, you weren’t mistaken, love.”

She nodded at one of the big blokes and he clomped away. Then she sat on one of the big, cream-colored sofas and gestured to the cushion next to her. “Please. Have a seat.” He did, and Reed sat on the sofa across from them, first placing the box on a side table. The other man hovered at the edge of the room, likely trying for unobtrusive, but not quite succeeding.

“You’ve given my firm a little trouble in the past, haven’t you, Spike?”

“I did.”

“And now, Nathan tells me, you’ve shaken off that nasty old soul and seen the error of your ways.”

He laughed. “Not quite. Soul’s gone, all right, but if you think I care what happens to your lot, you’re barmy.”

“But?”

“But I know you’ve got something big up your sleeves, and my hands are a trifle tied now. So I’m willing to give your scheme a go.”

Lilah looked over his shoulder and he glanced back, too. The other guard had returned carrying a drinks tray. The tray contained a glass of white wine, two tumblers of what looked like scotch, and a small metal cup of something that smelled nasty. Lilah tilted her head and the man put the tray down on the table in front of her. She reached for the wineglass and cupped it in one hand.

“I’m sure we’re all going to be the very bestest of friends, Spike. But you wouldn’t mind, oh, just a tiny little verification of your story, would you?”

He frowned at her. “What kind of verification?”

“That cup contains a potion that makes anything with a soul glow bright red for a moment. See?” She picked the cup up in her free hand and took a small sip. Almost immediately, a pale pink light emanated from her. She giggled. “I don’t get the whole light show because my soul pretty much belongs to the firm. But it’s still there, see?”

He nodded.

She held the cup out to him. “Have a drink.”

He took it and hesitated a moment. It likely wasn’t poisoned, unless it was with something that the woman was immune to. He supposed it could contain holy water, which wouldn’t hurt her a bit but would be, at a minimum, excruciatingly painful to him. He smiled. “Bottoms up,” he said, and downed the stuff in one draught.

It tasted awful, but it didn’t burn him or make him ill. In fact, it didn’t do anything but coat his tongue with the flavor of rotting, burnt skunk.

Lilah’s lips stretched into a broad smile. “No pretty colors. No soul. Go ahead and have a chaser to get rid of the taste.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, and he grabbed one of the tumblers and took a big sip, swishing the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing.

“So you really think you want to work with us?”

He leaned back against the cushion and sprawled his legs. “Depends what you have in mind.”

Lilah looked at Reed, who nodded. “See that little box over there?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“It contains a monster.”

“Can’t be much of one, unless your scheme is to terrorize insects.”

She giggled as if she found him unbearably cute. “You have to activate it. It’s kind of a big deal, with spells and sacrifices and stuff. But when you’re done, you get a nice, giant-sized monster, the kind that eats thirty people for breakfast and then wants seconds. It’s called the Ahriek.”

“Okay, so you make this Ahriek-whatsit grow, it has a nice nosh. What’s in it for you?”

“We’re gonna let it loose long enough to do a whole lot of damage. But then, before all is lost, the wonderful mayor is going to direct her emergency forces just right so that they destroy the thing. And then, as the battered city grieves, she’s going to be there, valiantly helping it rebuild.”

“Make yourself a hero, yeah?”

Her smile was toothy as a crocodile’s, and just as sincere. “Yep. And people will be so grateful, they’ll demand I run for governor, and I’ll be elected by a landslide.”

“And then?”

“And then California will have its own share of disasters—some wildfires, a couple floods, urban rioting, maybe a dandy earthquake—there are so many choices here, aren’t there? And I’ll be well-prepared for them, too. Four years from now, I’ll be President.”

Spike whistled appreciatively. “That’s a pretty scheme.”

“I think so. Kinda subtle, really.”

Spike swallowed the last of his scotch and then set the glass down. He leaned back again with his hands laced behind his head. “And my part in this little play?”

Reed leaned forward in his chair. “I have the perfect part for you. Fall guy. Or, uh, fall vampire, as it were.”

Spike quirked a single eyebrow.

“We let it look like you’re the one who activated the Ahriek. It’s believable. Unsoulled vamp with a grudge.”

“No.” Spike shook his head. “Watchers think I did this, I’ll be back in prison, soon as you please.”

Lilah placed a hand on his arm. He could feel the heat of her even through the fabric of his jacket. “We’ll help you lie low afterwards.”

“So I’d have to scuttle about like a rat?”

“Only for a little while. Only until we get in power. And then the possibilities are endless. There’s a lot of room for…growth…in our firm, for the right man.” She smiled at him suggestively. “What’s a few years to you anyway? Aren’t you over three hundred years old?”

“I am. But—“

“I’ll personally make sure you’re very comfortable.” And she stroked his arm a bit.

“I’m sure you will, love,” he replied, leering back at her. “But why would you go to all this trouble? You don’t really need me for this to work.”

“No, we don’t. But it’ll be better with you. Besides—and I think I speak for the entire firm here—there’s a lot of personal satisfaction in knowing Angel’s descendent and former sidekick helped us finally win.”

“Oi! Wasn’t that pillock’s sidekick!”

“No, no, of course not,” she purred.

“Look, Spike,” Reed said. “You don’t have much choice here. You can join us, or the mayor here can call the police and tell them how you’re up to your old, wicked ways. We’ll make sure you’re locked up too tight to tell anyone about our plans. Or maybe you’ll put up a fight when they take you into custody, and they’ll have to stake you in self-defense.”

Spike snorted. “Save the threats. You didn’t scare me before, you don’t now.” This was a boldfaced lie on both accounts. But he was a soulless demon—he was supposed to tell untruths.

Spike looked at his fingernails, which he’d been painting black again lately, and chewed his lip as if he were thinking hard. When he expected he’d drawn it out long enough, he looked at them both and nodded. “Let’s give it a go,” he said.

 

It was certainly the nicest prison he’d been in.

It wasn’t a proper prison at all, of course, just a suite in Lilah’s spacious house. But it was loads better than his dingy little flat. The bed was huge and comfortable. There was a holo screen that he could watch from bed or from a big chair. There was a small bar area with a fridge for his blood—he had human delivered twice daily—and a flash heater so he could drink it warm, and a satisfying collection of liquor. The loo was nearly as big as his flat, with a Jacuzzi and a shower that sported complicated controls by which he could precisely adjust the temperature, angle, and pressure of the water.

The best part of all, though, were the windows, which Lilah had necrotinted. It had been a very long time indeed since he saw anything but tantalizing glimpses of daylight, and he spent hours every day simply gazing outside, watching the sun sparkle off the distant ocean.

He was not free to leave. A pair of goons was permanently stationed just outside his door, armed with shock-sticks and sharpened wood. He didn’t much care. He hadn’t anywhere to go anyway.

Each evening a fair young thing was delivered to him. Some female, some male, but all quite limber and willing. It had been ages since Spike had got a leg over, so, even though he was fairly certain that cameras were watching his every move, he took advantage of the offered flesh. He wondered if he was meant to feed off these pressies as well, and it occurred to him that Wolfram and Hart might very well be taking steps to ensure none of these pretties blabbed about the vampire in the mayor’s home. He fretted over it a while until he remembered that he was an unscrupulous demon. Then he simply did his best to ensure that what might have been these humans’ last night of life was, at least, diverting.

 

A week later, late at night, Lilah appeared at his door.

“Ready, tiger?”

He slipped on his boots. “Yeah. What do I have to do?”

“Nothing. Just stand there. Nathan’s going to do the deed. Naturally, I can’t be anywhere nearby.”

“And then after?”

There was a quick, subtle shifting in her eyes. “We’ve got a nice, cozy spot to tuck you away in.” He suppressed a snort. Yeah. Nice, cozy spot in hell.

Lilah walked with him and two of the guards as far as the garage. Then she stopped. She was taller than he was, even in flat shoes, and it bothered him a bit that he had to look slightly up at her. She patted his shoulder. “Have fun,” she said, and walked away.

They drove for about twenty minutes and then pulled to a halt. As soon as he got out, he recognized where they were: Griffith Park. They were in a dark, bare spot in a canyon. Spike wordlessly followed the men in suits down a winding dirt path, until they came to a bit of a flat clearing.

Reed was there, grinning at him. The wooden box was open at his feet, and he had a piece of paper in one hand and a bunch of what looked like dried weeds in his other. A half-dozen tall, muscular men in suits stood a short distance away, and Spike had to struggle to maintain a poker face at what he saw next. Huddled on his or her knees in front of each of these men was one of the sweet things he’d shagged over the past week. They were naked and bound hand and foot and gagged, and most of them had tearstained faces. The goons held knives to their throats and Spike could just catch the scent of spilled blood.

“Ah! You made it!” Reed said, as if there had been any doubt. He gestured to Spike to approach, and Spike did, until he was standing next to the man. The guards who’d driven him here stood slightly back, flanking him.

“Before we begin, we’ll need a holo of you near the box, Spike. Maybe you could wave your arms and chant some bullshit, make it look like you’re conjuring something.”

“All right.”

Reed stuffed the paper in his pocket and pulled out his e.a., and the guards stepped slightly away so they’d be out of camera shot. Reed pointed the e.a. expectantly at Spike, who thought for a moment, then smiled. He’d wager that Reed and his lot weren’t overly familiar with the Latin poets. Holding his hands up dramatically, he began to recite:

 

_Furi et Aureli comites Catulli,   
sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,   
litus ut longe resonante Eoa   
tunditur unda,   
sive in Hyrcanos Arabesue molles,   
seu Sagas sagittiferosue Parthos,   
sive quae septemgeminus colorat   
aequora Nilus,   
sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,   
Caesaris visens monimenta magni,   
Gallicum Rhenum horribile aequor ulti-   
mosque Britannos,   
omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas   
caelitum, temptare simul parati,   
pauca nuntiate meae puellae   
non bona dicta.   
cum suis vivat valeatque moechis,   
quos simul complexa tenet trecentos,   
nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium   
ilia rumpens;   
nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,   
qui illius culpa cecidit uelut prati   
ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam   
tactus aratro est.**[1]**_

 

Reed smiled and nodded and captured the whole performance. “Wonderful!” he said when Spike was finished. “What was that you said?”

“Oh, just some Latin nonsense.”

“It was perfect. Okay,” he said, stepping beside Spike again. “We’re ready for the real deal. Tony, make sure you get Spike on your e.a., make it look like he’s the only one standing by the box when I activate the Ahriek.”

“Sure, boss,” replied one of the men, pulling his gadget out of his pocket.

“Just a mo,” Spike said. “Don’t want to be too close to the nasty when it pops up.” Actually, he needed to be _very_ close to the thing, but it was no good letting Reed know that.

“Oh, don’t worry. Since I’m waking it, I control it.”

“All right,” Spike said, injecting a heavy dose of doubt into his voice.

“Gentlemen?” Reed said. Nearly in unison, the six guards sliced deeply into the necks of the captives. Spike held back a shudder as the victims sank silently to the ground, their blood gurgling thickly into the dry soil. Some of them were still twitching when Reed held up his piece of paper and began to chant.

Spike didn’t recognize the sibilant language. It wasn’t human, he’d wager. Within a minute or two, the box began to thrum and rattle. All of the guards took several steps back. Reed paused, stuck the paper in his mouth, and pulled a silver-colored lighter from his pocket. He used it to set the plants in his other hand on fire, and then he tossed the burning bundle next to the box. He resumed his recitation.

There was an ear-splitting crack, so loud Spike nearly howled with the pain of it, and, as the smell of ozone permeated the air, the box flew apart into thousands of tiny shards. Something stood in its place, an object only the size of a mouse.

But as Reed continued the spell, the thing swelled rapidly, until it was as big as a young child and Spike could make out its details. It was hideous. It had far too many limbs and slavering jaws and looked a cross between a spider and an armadillo. It had dozens of eyes, each one spinning with mindless ferocity. It smelled of carrion.

Reed’s voice got louder and the Ahriek grew bigger still until it was the size of a grown man. It shivered and waved its legs about and uttered a high-pitched screeching noise that set Spike’s teeth on edge.

Spike took a deep breath and vamped out.

With a roar of his own, he flung himself onto the monster.

Dimly, he heard the humans shouting behind him, but that was of little matter to him right now. There wasn’t much they could do to harm him, without risking destroying their beast. Instead, Spike concentrated on the sharp, claw-like appendages that were tearing at his clothes and skin, on the needle-like teeth that glistened with what he’d wager was poison, on the reddish eyes staring at him with sheer malevolence.

The Ahriek was strong, and Spike wasn’t at all certain how to kill it. But he’d got to it as it was still expanding, still in flux, and he’d taken it by surprise. And in his experience, very few creatures managed well without their head attached.

Spike could feel the Ahriek digging into his belly and ripping the flesh from his chest. One lucky swipe got him across the face, blinding his left eye. But instead of jumping away, he moved in closer, where the Ahriek’s articulated legs had trouble reaching, until its face was inches from his own. It spat at him, splattering him with venom, but either he was immune or it was slow-acting, because it didn’t seem to cause him any harm.

He snarled at the beast and seized its head in his hands. It felt bristly and chitinous. It screeched again and he bellowed at it and, with all his strength, he wrenched its neck. It emitted a mewling howl and collapsed in front of him.

He didn’t even have time to take a breath. Gunfire erupted and he felt the bullets flying into him, flying through him. But he only turned and launched himself at Reed, who was still standing with the paper in his hand, yelling. Spike stopped the noise by ripping out the man’s throat.

He thought perhaps some of the guards ran away at that point, but he wasn’t certain. He was too busy kicking and hitting and biting, feeling tissue rend beneath his touch and bones break.

He fought, he thought, forever.

And then all was still.

He was on his back on the ground, the corpse of a man pinning him down. With nearly the last of his strength, he heaved the mass off of him and rolled onto his belly. Slowly he pushed up on his elbows and looked about.

The area around him was littered with still bodies. Nathan Reed gawped sightlessly into the dirt. The nude sacrifices lay exactly where they’d been killed, still bound. He tried to count the dead guards, but the vision in his single good eye was wavering and gray. He could see, however, the Ahriek, shriveled in on itself and unmoving.

It appeared that he’d won.

He laughed hoarsely and then coughed. Nothing in his body felt right. Nothing was working very well. There was pain, of course, but it merely buzzed around him like a swarm of midges, annoying but unimportant.

His arms gave out and he collapsed on his face.

And then, with tremendous effort, he rolled back around, until his face was turned upward at the lightening sky.

 

[Chapter Seven](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/48584.html)

  


* * *

[1] _Carmen 11_, by Catullus. English translation available here: <http://rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e11.htm>


	7. All Goes Onward and Outward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, _The Law_:

  
  
  
**Entry tags:**|   
[all goes](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/all%20goes), [spangel](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spangel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**All Goes Onward and Outward (7/7)**_  
**Title:** All Goes Onward and Outward   
**Chapter:** 7\. Joy and Woe are Woven Fine   
**Pairing:** Spike/Angel   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Author's Note:** This was based on the following prompt from [](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/profile)[**maharet83**](http://maharet83.livejournal.com/), a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song, _The Law_:

Now the deal has been dirty   
Since dirty began   
I'm not asking for mercy   
Not from the man   
You just don't ask for mercy   
While you're still on the stand   
There's a Law, there's an Arm, there's a Hand   
I don't claim to be guilty   
Guilty's too grand   
 

Thank you to [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)for the wonderful banners! Previous chapters [here](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=whichclothes&keyword=All+Goes+Onward+and+Outward&filter=all).   
I always really appreciate feedback. :-)

**I hope you've been enjoying the poetry and angst! Now for the final chapter, complete with bonus banner by [](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/profile)[**faketoysoldier**](http://faketoysoldier.livejournal.com/)! **

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001whrz/g39)  
---  
      
    
    **Chapter Seven**
    
    
    **Joy and Woe Are Woven Fine**
    
    
    Joy and woe are woven fine,
    
    
    A clothing for the soul divine.
    
    
    Under every grief and pine
    
    
    Runs a joy with silken twine.

\--William Blake, _Auguries of Innocence_

 

He awoke and made a sound, and he wasn’t certain if it was a laugh or a sob.

He was back in his cell. The first one, with the invisible barrier and nothing in it but bare walls and floor and the eternal flame of the light bulb and him. Bare, too, naturally.

The same as before. Exactly the same as before, only he was minus one soul—slightly used—and plus a new scar that ran deeply across his belly, and another that he could feel, bisecting the left side of his face. And even the memories that had sustained him before seemed so fragile and brittle with age that he was hesitant to bring them out, hoping they’d stay intact somewhere in the recesses of his brain.

The soldiers were, of course, exactly like the soldiers always were. This lot, though, was quiet, gravely and silently leading him out of his cell and down the cold corridors, this time without even giving him the thin grey trousers. Somehow, his bare footsteps echoed more loudly than did their booted ones.

It was the same courtroom, or one so similar as to be indistinguishable. It was empty, though, when they brought him in, and there was no cage. Instead they took him to a spot in the center of the room, directly in front of the judge’s bench but about ten feet back, and ordered him to stay there. They unfastened his shackles. Then they left.

Fleetingly, he considered disobeying. Escape was out of the question; he was sure that the doors were heavily guarded. But he could, say, sprawl on one of the uncomfortable-looking benches in the audience, or lie down on one of the attorneys’ tables, or stand in the corner with his back to the room. He could prove his defiance. Only he was so tired, and he hadn’t the energy to prove anything anymore, so he stayed put, patiently, waiting.

When the judge entered, unpreceded by bailiffs or other minions, Spike startled violently and let out an oath of surprise. It was the Watcher, Dylan Hartley, looking precisely the same as he had at their last meeting, but now clad in a black robe. Unlike Judge Delgadillo, Hartley actually looked at Spike, and he inclined his head once, magisterially, before taking his seat.

As Spike stood gaping at him, trying to formulate a question that would make sense, another door opened, and a line of people began to file in. Every one of them was stony-faced, and none of them made a sound. They came in one by one and filled the benches in orderly rows, and something about them tugged at the corners of Spike’s mind.

Then his eye fell on one of them and he gasped again, because he knew her. She was tall and lean and pretty, with milk chocolate skin and her hair haloed in an afro. She wore a cream sweater and bell-bottomed jeans, and a leather duster as familiar to him as his own skin.

He spun towards the bench, demands and accusations on the tip of his tongue, when he spied another familiar person: tiny, her hair done in long black queues. And then another: a teenaged boy with a spotty face and rumpled zoot suit. More: a middle-aged man in suit and tie. A young gypsy girl in a flowing skirt. A small, pale boy in short pants. And more, and more. He stood transfixed in horror and shock as they came noiselessly inside, and it must have taken hours, because there were _thousands_ of them, much more than the room could possibly hold, but it did, and still they came.

At last, the final one entered. A girl who reminded him of Dawn, with long straight hair and an attitude she wore like a formal gown. He remembered vividly the way this one had screamed and cried and pleaded with him to stop, please stop.

The door shut behind her, and every one of the people looked ahead at Dylan Hartley.

Spike stood there, naked before every person whom he had ever harmed—no, no, not every one, there were a few conspicuous absences, weren’t there?—and turned to face the Watcher. He did the only thing he could. He straightened his back and summoned the last of his bravado and sneered, “What’s this, then? Everyone’s come to see me hang?”

“No,” replied Hartley softly. “They’ve come to decide your fate. They are the jury.”

“But…I’ve already been tried. Double jeopardy, innit?”

“No, Spike. You were tried by an American court. This court represents another jurisdiction altogether.”

Spike swallowed. “You can’t—I mean—I have no soul. The decision’s already made. The verdict’s fixed, even more than that last trial.”

Hartley shook his head and smiled slightly. “You overestimate the value of a soul. The presence or absence of a soul does not determine the outcome in this court. You shall be judged solely on your intentions and your actions.”

“Well, then. We all know—_they_ all know—my actions very well.” He gestured toward the courtroom at large, at the expressionless faces staring at him. “So you can skip that bit, can’t you? Send the prosecutor on home early for the day.”

“There is no prosecutor in this court, nor a defense attorney. And there shall be no evidence, because you are quite correct. The jury is aware of what you have done.”

“Then why bother with this little show, then? I don’t see any cameras to entertain the multitudes.”

Hartley laughed as if he were genuinely amused. “No, no cameras, I can assure you. But we’re here so that you may have your say. Plead your own defense, if you will. Explain what you have done.”

Spike looked at the man in silence for some time, and then shrugged. All right. Might as well play this one out.

He turned his back to the bench and looked out at the endless rows of people, feeling the weight of those thousands of eyes upon him. He looked down at his bare feet, gathering his thoughts as best as he could, and then, almost without realizing it, traced his gaze over every scar on his body. He inhaled once, deeply, and wished once again for just a single cigarette.

“I won’t explain anything,” he said, and his voice was steady and clear. “And I won’t say I’m sorry, because I wasn’t when I hurt you. I reckon you know that. I’ve never been one for big, evil schemes. Never tried to destroy the world. I liked my bad one at a time, one brawl, one bite, one fuck at a time. I liked it when you screamed and begged and bled. I did. But I was never anything all that special, and if it wasn’t for Angelus and the others, I wouldn’t have made it past being a fledge.”

He thought about Drusilla for a moment, the heady taste of power those first weeks in London, and he bit back a grin.

“I wasn’t much as a human. Was good to my mum. Wrote crap poetry. Never hurt anyone. Died a virgin, you know?” He’d never admitted that to anyone, not even Dru, though he suspected she’d known.

“But I did a few things as a demon, a few things I’m proud of. Things I _chose_ to do, instead of just being led by my…inclinations. Wasn’t always as successful as I’d have liked—never was very patient at following through with a scheme—but I did try.

“I don’t deserve mercy and I won’t ask for it.”

He took another deep breath. “Only…only one thing I ask of you, even though none of you owes me a kindness. Remember me as a man. A bad man, fine. A flawed one. But a man, and some people…some people cared for me, once.”

His voice broke and he couldn’t go on, but he hadn’t anything more to say anyway. He shut his eyes to hold back tears and turned again to face the judge.

“Thank you, Spike,” Hartley said. “Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

Spike shook his head.

“Very well.” He looked out at the room. “Have you reached a decision?”

Again, Spike was startled. Wouldn’t they even pretend to deliberate? But in unison, his victims nodded.

“May I have the verdict, please?”

A boy in the front row stood. He was wiry and tanned, a fisherman, Spike recalled, and Spike had murdered him and his younger brother as they set out for their boat one morning before dawn. The brother was here, too, just next to the empty spot his brother had left on the bench, and his hair still looked as sleep-tossed as it had under the waning moon over two centuries ago.

The fisherman walked within a few feet of Spike without looking at him and approached the bench. He handed a slip of paper to Hartley, who thanked him. Then the boy sat back down.

Hartley unfolded the paper and read it, his expression carefully blank. He looked over at Spike. “Spike, the jury has decided to give you what you deserve.”

Spike blinked at him and then nodded. His throat was dry, but his eyes were, too.

Hartley looked out at the courtroom. “Thank you for your service. You may go.”

Spike stood there for another eternity, watching them leave. None of them looked back at him. When the room was empty save for him and the judge, Hartley stood as well.

“They’ll be here for you shortly,” he said. He smiled once again, and then he left, closing the door softly behind him.

Spike wrapped his arms around himself and looked up at the high ceiling. He tried to memorize every small pleasure he felt right now: the comfortable temperature of the room, the smoothness of the stone floor under his feet, the slight fullness in his stomach, the intactness of his body. He liked the way the overhead lights shone off the polished wood, the tiny rasp of his own lungs, the lemon scent of cleaning fluids. He hoped he’d be permitted to recall these trivial comforts later.

The door through which the jurors had exited opened slowly. He straightened his shoulders, waiting for the soldiers.

But it wasn’t a soldier who appeared.

It was….

Good Lord.

His legs buckled and he fell to his knees.

“Mum?” he whispered.

But before she could answer, someone else was crowding in behind her, someone slim and blonde, her hair in a ponytail and a broad smile on her face. And then, behind her, was a man. Tall and muscular, his brown hair gelled in careful spikes, his lips quirked in a crooked grin.

Of course. He’d hurt these most of all, hadn’t he?

The trio approached him and stood looking down at him. He steeled himself for the condemnation that would finally destroy him, but then he saw their eyes. Bloody hell. Their eyes shone not with hate and anger, but with love and joy.

Angel and Buffy put out their hands and hauled him to his feet.

“Come, William,” his mother said. “Let’s go home.”

 

 

_~~~fin~~~_

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0001pwdb/)  
---  
  
 

 


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